Science fiction's treatment of antimatter, considered by particle physicists
Starting in 1942, Jack Williamson wrote a series of stories about tough space miners who go after antimatter asteroids. There's the hope of unlimited energy, but the danger that any touch unleashes nuclear hell.Antimatter’s science fiction debut (Thanks, Bill!)In the latest issue of Symmetry, a magazine about particle physics, I've traced the chain of scientific developments in the 1930s and 1940s that inspired Williamson to write his "Seetee" tales-- if not the first, certainly the most influential stories to explore the physics of "contraterrene" (CT) matter.
Fermilab, where I work, manufactures antiprotons in quantity, so I enjoyed looking backwards at the ancestors of our business, tracking down the long-ago crossover where an abstruse possibility in nuclear physics led to speculation that flowed from astronomy to meteor science to SF.
Best of all, we obtained an image of Jack Williamson's carbon copy of "Collision Orbit." In their regular "Logbook" feature, the editors treated the manuscript with the reverence due a historic lab notebook, letter, or graph.
The Seetee stories originated in a weathered shack back of the family home on the Williamson ranch, which Jack built himself in 1934 so he could write in seclusion. This shack is still the object of occasional pilgrimages by 21st-century science fiction writers. See Scott Edelman's tour.
( Symmetry describes itself as "a magazine about particle physics and its connections to other aspects of life and science, from interdisciplinary collaborations to policy to culture.")
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I have just finished reading the Dan Brown book Angels and Demons (look, I was bored, ok...) and his treatment of antimatter seemed to be going ok, until he referred to 'electrons, and their opposing particle, the proton'. Looks like he hasn't heard of positrons...
This story warms my heart. I wrote a fan letter to Jack Williamson back when I was in High School in rural Texas in the 1970s, the first time I'd ever written to a science fiction author. I was astonished when he wrote back and mentioned that he would be speaking at a writers' conference in a nearby town the following year.
My mom paid the $20 fee for me to attend the conference and meet him (as well as several other authors) and I ended up being the youngest participant there. It was a great experience, and I joined a local writer's group which met once a month to read and critique each other's work.
I met up with Jack Williamson at several SF cons throughout the years, and he always remembered me. He was truly one of the grand masters and a fine human being.
phadrox, I sympathise - that was one of the top ten worst books I have ever read. I was bored too...
One of things I learned while getting my physics degree was that virtually everything people understand about how the world works is subtly, but fundamentally incorrect. A lot of science-fiction science is as well, but its surprizing and lovely when they get it just right, or better yet anticipate future developments.
Anti-protons are real? Wow. I may not be the sharpest card in the shed, but I think that's pretty cool.
Anonymous, thanks for the memory:
He was truly one of the grand masters and a fine human being.
I only met him a couple of times, but I attended a panel at Worldcon this year where friends reminisced about Jack. Short version: everybody who knew him agrees with you.
Modusoperandi: Yeah, antiprotons were discovered in 1954 (physicists having suspected their existence for a couple of decades), and by 1983 CERN and Fermilab were building factories to manufacture them by the trillions. Most were used in colliding-beam experiments producing other kinds of particles at high energy. But some were slowed down to study the properties of the antiproton itself.
It turns out to be very hard to put an antiproton together with a positron to make an antihydrogen atom, but this was achieved in 1995. This kind of work continues today, in CERN's ALPHA experiment.
Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey; consider my mind officially blown. What's next, telephones without cords? Radio with moving pictures? A really good froze pizza?