Nicol and the Proserpinans are hijacking a hundred tonnes of anti-hydrogen frozen at less then one degree kelvin into a 13.5 meter wide sphere held inside a larger sphere of positive matter by diamagnetism induced by currents in superconducting rings kept cold by a fission-powered paramagnetic refrigerator.
There is more technical information that I do not fully understand. There is no protective field against solar wind or cosmic rays because its generator would perturb the magnetic levitation so gamma ray quanta and esoteric particles waver around the cargo.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Even if I don't always understand the hard science Anderson used in his SF, I relished the science not only for its own sake but also because of how solid and realistic that made his SF to appear.
Sean
Kaor, Paul and Sean!
I remember diamagnetism and paramagnetism from the upper level undergraduate course I took in EM more than thirty years ago. This sounds like it just might work, but I’d be worried about any antihydrogen atoms drifting off and reacting wit( the normal matter shell, or the other way around, mutually annihilating, and providing the energy to break more atoms or antiatoms loose. Maybe at that temperature, there just wouldn’t be enough energy for any atoms of antihydrogen to break loose, or at least very few would. I think, though, that I might still be nervous.
Best Regards,
Nicholas
Kaor, Nicholas!
I think I see what you mean. But, I am sure Poul Anderson got the science and engineering down as accurately as possible given what was then known of such things.
Sean
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