What Is Antimatter, Why Is It The Most Expensive Material On Earth?

Rosemary March 12, 2024 | 11:20

Do you know that the most expensive substance on Earth costs $62 trillion for just one gram? Check out the article for full details.

There are numerous items in the world that carry a very high price tag. Precious metals, luxury automobiles, and jewelry rank highest in terms of costly possessions. However, were you awar that there exists an item of such exorbitant value that a handful of nations may need to pool their entire wealth in order to purchase a single gram of it? The subject of discussion pertains to antimatter.

What Is Antimatter, Why Is It The Most Expensive Material On Earth?

What Is The Most Expensive Substance On Earth?

What is the Most Expensive Material on Earth?

The answer is antimatter.

Producing one milligram of positrons costs approximately $25 million. In principle, antimatter can be used as fuel for spaceships in the future. However, the disadvantage now is that to produce just one gram of it, all of humanity would have to work for approximately a year without rest.

What you do with it: In the future, antimatter could be used to power spaceships to planets and even stars.

Video - What is Antimatter:

What is Antimatter?

Consider it the evil twin of matter.

Professor Doser believes that matter is the "bad guy" in this equation, whereas antimatter is the "good guy."

But the point is that antimatter is the opposite of matter.

It is identical to matter, with the exception that all of its component elements' electrical charges have been reversed.

This explains why it's so explosive.

When a piece of matter comes into contact with its evil antimatter counterpart, they cancel each other out, releasing all of the energy stored inside.

"[When] a proton and antiproton annihilate each other, their mass completely disappears," adds Dr. Doser.

"So this is by far the most energetic process that you can think of."

An antimatter explosion maximizes your investment by transforming all of their mass into energy.

"In the case of a chemical reaction, you're transforming only about a millionth of the mass of the object of the molecule into energy," Dr. Doser explains.

In the fictitious Dan Brown epic Angels and Demons, a small amount of antimatter burst above Vatican City, demonstrating the power of an antimatter reaction.

Why is it So Expensive?

What is Antimatter and why is it Important

To begin, what is this mysterious and expensive antimatter? Matter, the foundation of our cosmos, is made up of components that we've long understood: protons, electrons, and neutrons. However, physicist Paul Dirac made a significant discovery in 1930 when he introduced the world to the concept of 'antiparticles'. These were not only theoretical musings.

Dirac's work resulted in the discovery of the positron or antielectron, a particle having the same mass as the electron but an opposing charge. Using the same approach, antiprotons and antineutrons were identified as the antithesis of their ordinary matter counterparts.

Matter and antimatter interact in a stunning tango, as lyrical as the yin-yang dance. However, this is a dance of mutual destruction. Their combination causes annihilation and energy, demonstrating Einstein's famous equation E = mc². The energy released during matter-antimatter annihilation eclipses even the most explosive processes we know, such as nuclear explosions. Its potential energy release, which is infinitely more powerful than our most powerful explosives, makes TNT appear insignificant and puts nuclear explosions in the background.

How is Antimatter Made?

To make antimatter, you simply need to create matter.

Simple? Not really.

Expensive? You bet.

CERN's Antimatter Factory uses the following recipe to accomplish this feat:

1. Take a proton (charged subatomic particle)

2. Accelerate it dramatically

3.Crash it against an iridium block.

A proton-antiproton pair is formed in one collision out of every million.

The essential idea is that when a large amount of energy is focused at a single spot, it produces mass - matter's mass.

And, weirdly, energy can become matter's mass, and vice versa.

Einstein's equation best captures this equivalency:

e (energy) = m (mass) x c (speed of light) squared

However, whenever a large amount of energy is concentrated and converted into matter, antimatter is also created.

Other costly substances on Earth.

1. Californianium costs $25-27 million per gram.

2. Diamond costs $55,000 per gram.

3. Tritium costs $30,000 per gram.

4. Taaffeite costs $20,000 per gram, or $4,000 per carat.

5. Painite costs $9,000 per gram.

6. Plutonium costs $4,000 per gram.

Learn more: Top 15 Rarest & Most Expensive Materials on Earth of All Time

Conclusion

Antimatter, a concept commonly associated with science fiction, is extremely real in the world of physics. It is a mirror image of matter, the most fundamental component of the cosmos.

Because of its explosive nature (it annihilates when in touch with regular matter) and energy-intensive manufacture, antimatter is extremely expensive.

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