my science homework, PLEASE LOOK! (in Off-topic)

ahem...my science homework was to explain to as many people as I can about antimatter using the word AHNIALATION! and an evil laugh so here I go... (please read the whole thing so you can at least learn something while playing the time consumer)

Every particle has an antiparticle postron for which each additive quantum number has the negative of the value it has for the normal matter particle. The sign reversal applies only to quantum numbers (properties) which are additive, such as charge, but not to mass, for example. Still with me?
We have been trying to make antimatter scince 1990. After MILLIONS of tries, scientists managed to retrive 9 surviving antihydrogen protons!!! They lasted for 40 nanoseconds!!! What a 6 year accomplishment...Did I mention the lab's electricity bill every day is your yearly electricity bill?

Anywhay...if a particle collided with its positron it would cause TOTAL AHNIALATION (insert evil laugh)

Can you believe we have to memorize tons of these little useless bits of info in a 7th grade science class? =P

...... Huh?

If you read Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, it talks about antimatter and has some scientific research, if you're interested in a mystery/da vinci code kind of book...

(but it talks about religion much more)

Do they teach you how to spell "annihilation" in 7th grade?

And two small particle/anti-particles won't annihilate anything -- they will merely discharge energy according to E = mc^2.

I do love an evil laugh as much as the next guy, though...

Nah, annialation won't happen but they can power future spaceships if it didn't cost so much.

that's year 7? o_O

And by postron I am assuming you meant positron?

I was sure we had a spell checker on this forum thing...

yes, I meant positron, didn't feel like correcting myself

Did they make you memorize information about the 6 quarks, leptons, baryons, and mesons too?

yes, don't quarks make up protons?

"And two small particle/anti-particles won't annihilate anything -- they will merely discharge energy according to E = mc^2."

It's slightly more complicated than that. The energy emanating from a matter/antimatter reaction is more along the lines of the mass difference between the dot product (I think) of the original particle/antiparticle pair and that of the resulting carriers emanating from the reaction. In other words, the mass of the components of the reaction are not linearly additive (if I understand correctly... it's been a while since I studied particle physics).