Science Fiction

"If the CP domain structure is stretched to astronomical size by a subsequent period of moderate inflation, then, following , s may survive as galaxies in some regions of the universe and antibaryons may survive as antigalaxies in other regions. In this case, we have a "local" matter-antimatter asymmetry instead of a global one. ...[i.e.,] a "locally asymmetric domain cosmology (LADC)." Following baryogenesis, the walls of the initially CP symmetric vacuum between the positive and negative CP domains must vanish because they are quite massive and could eventually dominate the evolution of the universe, in conflict with observations."

"Antimatter galaxies will look exactly the same as matter galaxies. This is because the photon is its own antiparticle. However, we can look for other clues. Searches have been made for antimatter in the cosmic radiation and for the indirect traces of cosmic matter-antimatter annihilation in the extragalactic γ-ray background radiation."

"properties can play a crucial role in determining the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the universe if thermal is the correct solution to the problem. Owing to this, the study of Neutrino models goes beyond the mere purpose of generating tiny neutrino masses, and it is natural to incorporate the puzzle of cosmic ."

"One of the most fundamental concepts in the study of physics is the idea of symmetry. Yet, Nature as we know it does not always seem to be perfectly symmetrical. ...[T]he principal theme for this current work is motivated by none other than the apparent between matter and antimatter in the universe. Therefore, along with the appeal of symmetry, a major topic of interest is the mechanism of symmetry breaking or asymmetry creation."

"[I]t is quite fascinating that two seemingly unrelated problems—the tiny masses of light neutrino and the matter-antimatter asymmetry—may be explained by the mere introduction of heavy RH [right-hand] neutrinos to the SM. ...[T]he former may be explained by the Type I seesaw mechanism while thermal leptogenesis provides an attractive solution to the later. This... means that an intricate link between neutrino properties and the baryon asymmetry can be established. Consequently, it has been the purpose of this work to explore the implications of several different neutrino models in the leptogenesis context."

"In the representative models... it has been found that successful leptogenesis is only possible in a very fine-tuned region of the parameter space. Specifically, one must select the f = u case, as well as certain combinations of Dirac and Majorana phases in UPMNS such that a lepton asymmetry can be generated via either resonant of flavoured N2-leptogenesis. Further, it has been shown that although the f = e case can yield a TeV scale RH neutrino, the probability of detecting it at the LHC or a next-generation collider such as the ILC is far too small."

"[W]e investigated the effects of introducing an effective transition electromagnetic dipole moment [EMDM] operator between the LH light and the RH heavy neutrinos. ...As a result, a new scenario for leptogenesis whereby the lepton asymmetry is solely generated by the EMDM-type (instead of the usual Yukawa-mediated) interactions is possible. By exploring the key ingredients leading to , we have shown by explicit computations of the relevant diagrams in a toy model that, in principle, electromagnetic leptogenesis is a viable alternative for creating a lepton asymmetry. ...[T]here is no doubt that transition EMDM interactions between light and heavy neutrinos can have far-reaching consequences in the early universe."

"Sakharov published other papers in cosmology. ...[T]he most far-reaching, innovative, and original... concerned "". "s"... denote collectively not only protons and neutrons but also... unstable particles... created when protons and neutrons collide at extraordinarily high speeds. "Antibaryons"... carry the opposite electrical charge. When baryons and antibaryons collide, they annihilate each other, producing... exotic, unstable particles, such as pi-mesons, which are lighter than baryons, as well as radiation... "quanta"... or photons, which have no mass at all. The "background radiation" cosmologists discovered in the mid-1960s is... a remnant of the... annihilation of baryons and antibaryons... when the universe was created or shortly afterward. Baryons and antibaryons, in other words, are one form of matter and antimatter, respectively; electrons... and their opposite, positrons, are another."

"Sakharov tried to explain why exists... how there came to be a surplus of baryons... The consensus... was that there had to be baryon symmetry when the universe began. But there was no consensus on how symmetry broke down. ...According to Sakharov, for baryon asymmetry... the universe at the quantum level... had to have, in Christopher Korda's words, "an intrinsic ." ...[P]hysicists ...refer to the sequence... Sakharov described as "the Sakharov conditions.""

"Sakharov's conclusion was that ""—the difference between baryons and antibaryons in the universe—was not constant, as most... believed. ...[B]aryons, and in particular protons, can decay, and it was Sakharov's concept of proton decay and how it comes about that proved to be perhaps the most remarkable of all his contributions to cosmology. ...D. S. Chernavski, went as far as to say that, by showing theoretically that the proton can disnintegrate, he revealed "the basis of the universe." Ironically, Sakharov's ideas on the subject did not attract much attention for about a decade. But the development of... gauge theories in the late 1970s sparked new interest... even though proton decay has yet to be confirmed experimentally."

"A nucleus contains two protons and two neutrons. Under suitable circumstances a proton can change into a neutron and emit energy some of which materializes as a positron, similar to what happens in the positron emitters of... medicine."

"The finds itself in the heart of the sun, where there are lots of electrons and is instantly destroyed, turned into s. These try to rush away... but are interrupted by the crowd of electrically charged particles, electrons and protons... [R]epeatedly absorbed by electrons and then emitted with less energy... it will take a hundred thousand years before gamma rays... reach the surface... In doing so the rays lose lots of energy... changing from s to ultra-violet and at last into the rainbow of colours that are visible... So daylight is the result of antimatter being produced in the heart of the sun and, in part, of its annihilation."

"[H]ow can an electron with negative electrical charge emerge from the energy in a puff of light, which has no... charge? This is where nature's two forms of matter enter the story. The negatively charged electron has a positively charged form... the . The energy of a photon, a particle of light, becomes trapped in these two complementary pieces of substance. This... can also happen in reverse: an electron and a positron can annihilate one another, their individual energies being taken by the photons that rush from the scene of destruction at the speed of light. The emergence of substance from pure energy... is almost biblical in scope. With antimatter... we make contact with the gods of creation."

"In 1923 ... was investigating s... using a . ...The ...rays would knock electrons out of atoms... whose trails he could see... [I]n addition to knocking electrons out of the gas, they were ejecting them out of the walls of the chamber ...which interfered with the measurements... He... came up with the... idea of sweeping away the unwanted electrons by putting the chamber between the poles of a large magnet. ...[T]he clearer view revealed ...the magnetic forces seemed to make some of the 'electrons' curve 'the wrong way'. Today we know he was seeing s, but... [the] anomalous trails were a distraction from what he was trying to do. ...News about these images spread ...and five years later Skobeltsyn decided to show them at an international conference in Cambridge. ...[N]o one could offer an explanation. It was ironic that [this was]... the same year and... place that Dirac came up with his theoretical prediction of positrons... [A]s no one at the time had any reason to expect... positrons existed, he missed the big prize."

"Blackett had been working with a in Rutherford's group... a chamber that was ready for action every ten seconds or so, and took photos on ordinary film. ...[H]e accumulated ...pictures of trails made by s—a product of radioactive nuclear decays— ...bombarding nitrogen gas in the chamber. ...[I]n 1931 arrived ...His specialty was detecting nuclear radiation using s. ...Their big idea ...put one Geiger counter above a cloud chamber, and another... below. ...By connecting the Geiger counters to a ...a flash of light [and the cinematograph] captured the tracks of the cosmic rays on film. ...They noticed that ...a few tracks that appeared at first sight to be electrons, were ...curved the wrong way in the magnetic field. Blackett talked to Dirac about them... neither aware of the precious truth. ...It was only when they heard of Anderson's discovery that Blackett and Occhialini ...realized what they had."

"[L]uckily... they had more... Many of the pictures showed up to twenty... tracks ...from a copper plate just above the chamber ...roughly half of the particles were negatively charged and the rest positively charged. Blackett and Occhialini realized... the appearance of equal numbers of positrons and electrons must be... the result of s hitting the metal."

"Albert Einstein's equation E = mc^2, implies that energy (E) can be converted into mass (m)—radiation into matter—and Blackett and Ochialini had for the first time demonstrated the creation of matter, and antimatter, from radiation; they had proved that Anderson's new particle was not some weird extraterrestrial interloper."

"An ambitious plan took hold at Berkeley... to build an accelerator that would speed s such that when smashed into a target, there would be enough energy to produce an . ...When energy turns into massive particles they emerge in pairs, a particle... matched with its antiparticle, so the BeVatron was built with enough power to produce an antiproton in conjunction with a proton... Several ideas on how to isolate the antiproton 'needle' from the particle 'haystack' were presented... A small team... of , Emilio Segre, , and won the competition ...their idea worked ...and in 1955 they announced their discovery. One of the other teams led by that had entered the competition also gained success... with the discovery of the in 1957. So thirty years after Dirac['s]... seminal prediction, the basic pieces of the antiworld were in place: , antiproton, and ."

"Since antimatter will destroy any material object, it must be kept in a cage without material walls. The solution... a vacuum that is better than in outer space with magnetic and electric fields that confine the antiparticles, positrons, or antiprotons, as circulating beams. That is in effect what is done at particle physics laboratories such as CERN..."

"Magnetic fields that had been able to focus positrons into stable orbits were unable to control the wild antiprotons... Budker's idea was to pass the antiprotons through clouds of cold electrons. Although electrons are matter and antiprotons are antimatter, they are in no danger to one another: electrons are destroyed by their antiparticle, the positron, while the antiproton is at risk only from protons or neutrons. ...By 1974 Budker... succeeded in making and cooling antiprotons, but not in sufficient numbers to make an intense beam."

"It is just like matter except with a reversal of charges. ...We make it and study it in our laboratories, but find little of it in nature. The laws of physics for antimatter are almost an exact mirror of those for matter."

"For each type of matter particle there is a matching type of antimatter particle. ...[W]e can convert energy from radiation into a matched pair..."

"[T]heories suggest that, at very early times... all possible types of particles and antiparticles, existed equally in a hot, dense, and very uniform . ...[A]s the Universe expanded and cooled... annihilation could still occur whenever a particle met an antiparticle, but the reverse... creation of a particle and an antiparticle, became... rare."

"[H]igh energy laboratories can produce particles with energies similar to those that prevailed in the [very early] Universe... allows us to model the primordial production of small nuclei from collisions starting with s and s, long before stars began to form. Because we know... what energies are required for collisions to take apart... light elements [ less than 11] into... protons and neutrons, we can identify... the time at which the Universe became cold enough that this destruction practically ceased, and... production of elements started in earnest."

"The fate of antimatter to disappear was sealed by the time the Universe was no older than a millionth of a second."

"[T]he mystery of the missing antimatter... What laws of nature, not yet manifest in experiments and not part of our current Standard Model, were active in the early Universe, allowing the observed amount of matter to persist while all antimatter disappeared from the Universe?"

"$175,000 will get the bridge completely restored and will give us a place to put it, That will get us at least a few of the computers going. And up until now, everybody’s been doing everything for free—I don't want people going broke on this. Fandom is fandom, but people have to eat and live."

"I got those, Data’s chair and console, the side walls, and some panels from Vegas. And though I didn’t know I'd have the entire bridge someday, I knew they were an invaluable history of Trek, I couldn't allow it to bring me down. I spent almost a year trying to convince people to help me. If worst came to worst it could go to a rich guy’s house but then no one would see it. Once this happened, that's how this bridge got forgotten about—people changed hands, people got fired, I didn't know if he had standing assembled walls or what, My whole thing was: this is good, it's great to have a dream, but it’s great to have your feet on the floor too. They said: ‘You have to do something. This can't remain in this condition."

"Is the very essence of what science fiction is all about."

"We look at this as the best of all possible worlds, but the French know it isn't, because most people speak English."

"It is easy to argue persuasively the truism that the lessons of history are best derived from what actually happened, rather than from what nearly happened. It should be added, however, that what happened becomes more fully comprehensible in the light of the contending forces that existed at moments of decision. Understanding of the total historical setting is bound to contribute to a clearer view of the actual course of affairs."

"Plausibility, as the necessary brake and control element, has been our most essential guide."

"I always take care of my own. Just not my own liver, is all."

"to Mr. Jinx: WEAR IT LIKE A HAAAAAT!!"

"to Mr. Jinx: Remind me to pay you a wage so I can threaten to dock it."

"For the same reason the universe exists! Dining ambience."

"High-contrast lighting and cold onyx surfaces. How Kubrick. How hideous."

"My diplomacy must sparkle."

"to attacking pirates: Attention roguish invaders! Before you begin your practiced savaging of what must appear to be another ordinary starship, be aware that this is not some bulk freighter, but a place of learning and culture! This ship houses some of the most priceless treasures in known space! To plunder it is to plunder the poet soul of mankind."

"Why doesn't anything go right for me? All I wanted was to enslave a destroyed universe of tortured dead."

"I'm all for beating swords into plowshares, but I'd rather do it over someone's skull."

"You must settle down, sir! Perhaps my calming anesthetic saliva --"

"Sorry if I got some Jinx on you."

"My mom was an alcoholic small arms dealer. She knew I needed a masculine influence around the house after my father left. We had this turret I called 'dad.'"

"I have a running tab at the engine room's waste ethanol pump."

"to an alternate-universe Vanderbeam: No dice, parallel-face! You're reactor chow."

"Rule 29. The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. No more. No less."

"Rule 28. If the price of collateral damage is high enough, you might be able to get paid for bringing ammunition home with you."

"Rule 27. Don't be afraid to be the first to resort to violence."

"Rule 24. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a big gun."