Antihelium was recently produced on earth for the first time. Just like the bronze and stone ages, we could distinguish modern time scales by order of heaviest antiparticle production.
From the article: "The most common antiparticles are generally the least massive, because it takes less energy to create them. Carl Anderson was the first to find an antiparticle, the antielectron (positron), in cosmic ray debris 1932. The antiproton (the nucleus of antihydrogen) and the antineutron were created at Berkeley Lab's Bevatron in the 1950s. Antideuteron nuclei ("anti-heavy-hydrogen," made of an antiproton and an antineutron) were created in accelerators at Brookhaven and CERN in the 1960s."
------> Back to [daseva rambling at you]: The reason why I would like to do this is because it takes successively more energy and sophistication to reach higher baryon numbers in the antinuclei. Therefore, it's a "natural" logarithm to help linearize the apparently ever increasing pace of technology. The energy relationship is also described in the article here:
"Each extra nucleon (called a baryon) increases the particle's baryon number, and in the STAR collisions every increase in baryon number decreases the rate of yield roughly a thousand times. The nuclei of the antihelium isotope with only one neutron (antihelium-3) has been made in accelerators since 1970; the STAR experiment produces many of these antiparticles, having baryon number 3. The antihelium nucleus with baryon number 4, just announced by STAR based on 16 examples identified in 2010 and two examples from an earlier run, contains the most nucleons of any antiparticle ever detected."
So, we start with the 30s as the Positron Age and work from there.-- daseva, Apr 25 2011 Anti-helium "discovered". http://www.scienced...04/110424152441.htm [daseva, Apr 25 2011] The Petabyte Age http://mozy.com/blo.../whatsapetabyte.gifSee, very confusing. Who cares?! Making and storing information isn't that cool. [daseva, Apr 26 2011, last modified Apr 27 2011] Rye? Well, rye not? [+]-- 4whom, Apr 25 2011 You spelt something wrong there, sir.-- blissmiss, Apr 25 2011 Well, yes, why not indeed? (But what does STAR stand for? )
However, I'm not sure the timescales will be comparable to those of the "bronze age", "stone age", "cheese age" etc. We'll be up to anti-ununoctium within a century. Maybe better to call this "the antimatter age". I don't know what we'll call the age after that, but then again I don't suppose the stone-age Halfbakers sat around thinking "I think we'll call the next age 'bronze', for when we invent it."
But what the heck. [+] for the subsequent interesting annotations that this idea will spur.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Apr 25 2011 Ug! Thag! I told you before breakfast, it's the Bronze age starting today! Will you put down those stone axes and behave yourselves! What will the Period Enforcers say if they see you?-- pocmloc, Apr 25 2011 //I'm not sure the timescales will be comparable to those of the // I think we all know it is an exponential curve (this naming of ages), some authors have gone so far as to name ages in picoseconds. No names mentioned, mums the word...-- 4whom, Apr 25 2011 Mothers have named ages which last for picoseconds? Why?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Apr 25 2011 Breach?...Of contraction...-- 4whom, Apr 25 2011 Just to be picky, positrons commonly occur in nature, and were therefore "discovered" rather than being "produced". (Bigger antiparticles probably occur momentarily in supernovas and the like, but that doesn't really count.)-- spidermother, Apr 26 2011 I agree with the contention. And the dubious nature of how these ages should start would be ample fodder for controversy. Indeed, I chose the title in part to suggest that the Antihelium Age may be an apt beginning for all this, even though the text is sticking strictly to previous advancements.
Afterall, this could all wind up to be a lot of hot air, as [MaxBuch] mentioned, and we end up summarizing the whole lot as the Antimatter Age. I doubt it, Judging by energy requirements that I have previously detailed.
I feel it to be a handy way to gauge tech and social advancements... What would you use? How much collective digital memory is held in our civilizations? That would be an example of a naming scheme impossible to regulate.
I don't wanna take this too seriously, but then again, Sure. Rye not!-- daseva, Apr 26 2011 [ ] might be okay for short period of time, but there's no clearcut delineation between strata. We haven't even started using antimatter yet, so how could you call it an "Age". The "Stone Age" refers to people shaping and using stone, not just tripping over it and cursing.-- FlyingToaster, Apr 26 2011 Belgium! Who's the smegging turlingdrome who left the frelling lump of antiquartz on the floor? If you can't think of a use for it, throw it away!-- spidermother, Apr 26 2011 Building the LHC and sifting through trillions of bits of information with the world's currently fastest supercomputers is hardly 'tripping' though, [FToaster].
It's a different way of measuring stuff than the old 'lets name the age off the most prevalent infrastructural commodity' gig. It's actually more clear cut than those other ages. C'mon, did the stone age start the first time a person made a stone ax or a wheel? No, it's just approximate. WIth this type of dating pattern, we can get down to the freaking day of discovery (or 'production' for you pedants), how novel!
Also, [spidermother], the next time I need someone cursed at, I'm calling you, deal? You'll be paid in increments of how creatively you can incorporate bodily fluids into the raving demolition.
I really don't want this to turn into a "I forgot my initial point, but let's continue with this other trash for a while" type arguments, so let me just ask:
Is it reasonable to analyze a society based off their biggest inventions? And is the LHC and similar tools not our pinnacle achievements, in essence? And so should not their discoveries be markers in our collective existence?-- daseva, Apr 26 2011 //blah blah blah// then call it the "Age of the Cyclotron" or the "Age of the Dawn of Particle Physics". I'm pretty sure "Stone Age" doesn't refer to people picking up shiny pebbles and putting them into their pockets or equivalents either. Neither is noticing that there's a rather bright object in the sky illuminating everything a call for an "Age of Nuclear Fusion" moniker. Put some antimatter in my gas tank, then we'll talk.
On the other hand, what you said to [spidermother], sign me up too.-- FlyingToaster, Apr 26 2011 //blah blah blah// I pray for you to get your sense of logos back, [flyingtoaster].. and well, two cursors, now that will really clear my schedule... <imagines similar idea for computer, must exist already>
There is something funny about the HB. You make an Idea and you say, Okay I'm going to cover some real obvious bases so we can get along. But new problems will always come up that you didn't see or didn't want to. In what you brought, [FT], it was a little bit of both, I think. I glanced over your issue before posting but left my musings nowhere in the text. More so, the manner with which I glossed over it was almost uncontrollable. Subconscious. And the manner with which you brought it was very tangible, concise and shit. I don't know if any of that just made sense, but it stands as testimony to at least one possible naming scheme: B.H. and A.B. lol-- daseva, Apr 26 2011 Yes, well perhaps I could've pointed out my objections instead of simply getting a little nasty'ish about it...
- the method currently used to make antimatter won't be the one which puts antimatter into your cellphone battery or iRocket.
- making an invention bigger doesn't make it a different invention... so making anti-lithium by simply throwing 1,000,000,000x's more stuff together doesn't really count.
- when they do come up with a decent method of making the stuff, it'll probably go through the element table like indigestible matter through a digestive system.-- FlyingToaster, Apr 26 2011 // - making an invention bigger doesn't make it a different invention... so making anti-lithium by simply throwing 1,000,000,000x's more stuff together doesn't really count.//
This is my main dispute with your argument. Where in the hell is [8/7th] when you need him: the advancement of a race should be in direct correlation with its energy harvesting capabilities. It's called 'scaleability' and engineers have been toiling with it ever since big logs made bad tinder.-- daseva, Apr 26 2011 // - when they do come up with a decent method of making the stuff, it'll probably go through the element table like indigestible matter through a digestive system.//
[+] to both FT and MB for making and predicting what I consider to be an interesting annotation. I could explain, and I leave the space for it. In short: probably.-- daseva, Apr 26 2011 From somewhere in the annos or possibly the links where it says to throw 1,000x more stuff to end up with antideuterium, or something like that.
//the advancement of a race should be in direct correlation with its energy harvesting.// It's called the <googlegooglegoogle> "Kardashev Scale".-- FlyingToaster, Apr 26 2011 I was hoping someone else would bring it up first. I know it's pretty well known, but I do dig the concept in [FlyingToaster]'s googlage and was working off it a bit. I don't see anything in his literature that uses collider benchmarks for linearizing the evolution of the type 1 to 2 (presumably the only that would matter) civilizations, as it stands... However, great material, thanks for the link. It's captured my imagination since I first read it.
So, in short, this idea is: Kardashev Scale Linearization for Social Application via the Desired Byproducts of Particle Colliders.
Meh, sounds boring....-- daseva, Apr 26 2011 Mostly it's just that eventually the "AntiIron Age" would be between 4:46 and 4:48pm last Tuesday sort of thing.
Probably have to skip the radioactives though.-- FlyingToaster, Apr 26 2011 I'm guessing the Anticarbon Age would be the last true civilization. Anything after that leads to full oxidation of the body and true spiritualization... If it at all exists.-- daseva, Apr 26 2011 [MaxBuchannan], sometime in the antilithium Age, I will be able to appear before you and shoot both of us over those damned jokes you make: //Mothers have named ages which last for picoseconds? Why?// without killing anyone....
By the time I got it my smarter self had been flushed down the toilet in the antigolden age...-- daseva, Apr 26 2011 What we need, just to really confuse matters, is to discover/rename one of the elements to be called Diluvian/Diluvinum/Diluvinium or something like that. Then, once it gets antified, we can start arguments over whether someone meant antidiluvian or antediluvian - or indeed something else entirely.
And surely an 'age' should be based on something that will later be dug up out of the ground. The only reason the stone/bronze/iron ages are so-called is because those things were both widely used, but more importantly could be easily unearthed relatively intact. I'm not sure that's going to be the case with anti-helium - on either the usage front, or the unearthing one. Maybe we're in the steel age (the 'bronze' age proves that alloys are allowed) or the silicon age, or the plastic age.-- zen_tom, Apr 26 2011 The Stoned Age starts at 4:20.-- xandram, Apr 26 2011 Antibellum - 'twill destroy us all...-- lurch, Apr 26 2011 If we are in the phase of civilisation characterised by the question, "Where shall we have lunch?", then it is the antipasto age.-- spidermother, Apr 26 2011 I thought everyone knew that this was the dawning of The Age of Aquarius?-- DrBob, Apr 27 2011 //The Age of Aquarius//
Hence the word "Antiquarian" to denote oldness. That is, someone or something that *wasn't* about at the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. [Anti] = not [(A)Quarian] = of the Age of Aquarius.-- zen_tom, Apr 27 2011 You can get anti-ageing cream.-- pocmloc, Apr 27 2011 Age of Minecraft.
Says it all.-- Twizz, Apr 27 2011 random, halfbakery