CERN Declare Antimatter Bombs Impossible

A graphic showing a collision at full power is pictured at the Compact Muon Solenoid experience control room of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Meyrin, outside Geneva, on March 30 of last year.

Scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research have been experimenting with particles that may seem esoteric to the layman.

One of these mysterious particles being studied by the physicists at CERN is antimatter, the twin to matter particles that make up everything in the universe.

Antimatter particles are sub-atomic particles that have the opposite properties of those found in normal matter particles. An electron's antimatter equivalent is the positron.

Scientists have theorised that the universe had the same amount of matter and antimatter in the first moments after the Big Bang but over 14 billion years most of the antimatter was destroyed.

Scientists have never been able to explain why the antimatter disappeared but one theory points out that there could have been more matter than antimatter in the beginning.

Matter and antimatter annihilate each other when they meet so if there were more matter than antimatter, there would have been enough normal matter to form the stars.

Ever since the scientists at CERN reported that they were successful in creating antimatter using the Large Hadron Collider there have been some concerns among the general public about the implications of the discovery.

Could antimatter be used to make bombs as popularised in Dan Brown's book "Angels and Demons" where a secret society used an antimatter bomb?

To allay those fears CERN actually released a disclaimer on its site about antimatter and the possibility of an antimatter bomb.

"It would take billions of years to produce enough antimatter for a bomb having the same destructiveness as 'typical' hydrogen bombs, of which there exist more than ten thousand already," the group responsible for creating the antimatter explained at their website.

There is also not enough antimatter created by CERN to annihilate the Earth or even use for anything other than for pure research. Creating enough antimatter to build a bomb is also very inefficient since CERN can only create miniscule amounts of antimatter by colliding particles at very high energies.

"Thanks to the inefficiency of the transformation process of energy into antimatter we are safe," CERN physicist Rolf Landua explained on the institute's website. "We do not have to worry about military applications."

"Take Dan Brown's hypothetical 1 gram of antimatter," he continued. "With present CERN technology, we would be able to produce about 10 nanograms of antimatter per year, at a cost of about $10-20 million.

Then we would have to deal with the problem of how to store so many particles (about 10,000,000,000,000,000 antiprotons).

Obviously, it would take 100 million years - and $1,000 trillion - to make 1 gram. This appears ambitious even for the US military."

IRAN: Working on Final Component of Nuclear Bomb

The reactor building of Iran's Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, located 750 miles south of Tehran.

Confidential intelligence documents obtained by The Times of London show that Iran is working on testing a key final component of a nuclear bomb.

The notes, from Iran’s most sensitive military nuclear project, describe a four-year plan to test a neutron initiator, the component of a nuclear bomb that triggers an explosion. Foreign intelligence agencies date them to early 2007, four years after Iran was thought to have suspended its weapons program.

An Asian intelligence source last week confirmed to The Times that his country also believed that weapons work was being carried out as recently as 2007 — specifically, work on a neutron initiator.

The technical document describes the use of a neutron source, uranium deuteride, which independent experts confirm has no possible civilian or military use other than in a nuclear weapon. Uranium deuteride is the material used in Pakistan’s bomb, from where Iran obtained its blueprint.

"Although Iran might claim that this work is for civil purposes, there is no civil application," said David Albright, a physicist and president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, which has analysed hundreds of pages of documents related to the Iranian programme. "This is a very strong indicator of weapons work."

The documents have been seen by intelligence agencies from several Western countries, including Britain. A senior source at the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that they had been passed to the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog.

A Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokeswoman said yesterday: "We do not comment on intelligence, but our concerns about Iran’s nuclear program are clear. Obviously this document, if authentic, raises serious questions about Iran’s intentions."