Now, physicists will tell you that anti-matter consists of particles of matter that carry an opposite charge from their "regular" matter counterpart. An anti-electron, or positron, carries a positive rather than a negative charge. An anti-proton carries a negative rather than a positive charge. And so on. When a particle and its antiparticle counterpart come into contact with each other, they annihilate each other, releasing lots of energy (to the tune of e=mc2 ). This has been observed in particle accelerators around the world, and scientists have learned much about the nature of physical reality from these observations. Apparently the space around us is bubbling with particles and antiparticles coming into existence and just as quickly popping out of existence, which doesn't pose the slightest threat to our existence - it's been happening since the Big Bang, after all. In fact, as there should for reasons of symmetry be just as much anti-matter in the universe as the regular stuff, it's a mystery to scientists where the missing anti-matter is. Except that, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't missing.
None of that really matters to the writers of bad science fiction. The only thing that they absorb about the concept is that it's disastrous to mix these two substances. MATTER + ANTIMATTER = BIG BOOM!!! What a good story this would make! Obviously, anti-matter is evil matter, and must be stopped, whether by Captain Kirk, Doctor Who, or the morose inhabitants of earth's breakaway moon!
I would hypothesize that we can lay much of the blame for this bad science on the shoulders of an anonymous writer of popular science, writing probably in the nineteen forties or nineteen fifties. This person introduced her readers to the concept of anti-matter, outlining it much as I did in the second paragraph above. But she waggishly closed off the article with a little jest, along the lines of: "So - if you should happen to meet your anti-matter twin coming down the street towards you - remember - DON'T SHAKE HANDS!" Not expecting that anyone would take that seriously, of course.
How wrong she was can be judged from the following examples:
Space:1999 "A Matter of Life and Death". The one that gave this blog its name.
"Is that a positron in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?'
Star Trek "The Alternative Factor". Two twins, one of them psychotic, from alternate universes (ours and the antimatter one) must never meet or they will destroy both universes!
Doctor Who "Planet of Evil". Why is this planet evil? Why, because of the antimatter, silly! It gives Sarah Jane the shivers, and turns a man into a life-sucking monster. Apparently one of the writers of this serial got the idea by reading science magazine articles. I told you so!
Star Trek "The Alternative Factor". Two twins, one of them psychotic, from alternate universes (ours and the antimatter one) must never meet or they will destroy both universes!
Doctor Who "Planet of Evil". Why is this planet evil? Why, because of the antimatter, silly! It gives Sarah Jane the shivers, and turns a man into a life-sucking monster. Apparently one of the writers of this serial got the idea by reading science magazine articles. I told you so!
*In 1999, nuclear waste, deemed too unsafe to keep on earth, is stored on the far side of the moon. (Though of course it's perfectly safe to blast this stuff on a rocket into space to get to the moon- rockets never have accidents.) Due to a freak chain reaction, the nuclear waste explodes, causing the moon to be ejected out of earth orbit at an enormous velocity, then out of the solar system altogether. Suffice to say, as the far side of the moon is always facing away from the earth, according to Newton's third law this explosion should actually have moved it blasted it directly towards the earth, not away. To say nothing of a myriad other scientific absurdities.
