the_stark said:
I heard that mass is actually lost during nuclear reactions, and converted into energy. hence E=MC[sup]2[/sup]. So, maybe that has something to do with antimatter and 'antiphotons'.... just a thought.
That would be fun. A nuclear reactor in your pocket! It will probably be found to cause cancer though...
nicely said.
Reality check: mass[sub]antimatter[/sub] + mass[sub]matter[/sub] in kilograms * roughly 10[sup]17[/sup] will give you energy in joules. Now go figure the kiloton equivalent of your left leg and hide from the police for "posession of a weapon of mass destruction".
Nuclear reactor in your pocket? Fun stuff there. They once produced a battery (in the 50s) that consisted of a radioactive substance decaying, phosphor around it that was lowing due to radiation (like
me). Then a primitive silicon "solar cell" was placed around it and created power for the next years.
Even more fun: use a big lump of decaying stuff, hook it up to a peltier element, let the other side be cooled by the surrounding environment and you got yourself a 10-yr-battery! Useful for satellites (but risky, imagine the rocket explodes few miles above, like, Cape Canaveral, and have several hundred kgs of highly radioactive dust raining over the US) or , as used in the Soviet Union, for remote light houses, so that you don't have to ship a refueling troop there every few months, it would just fire its light powered by the radioactive TEC battery. "Funny" part: SU fell apart, and so did these towers. Nobody to maintain them, the radioactive was dumped in some forests for the local residents to stumble upon and "radiate in joy"...
Man there are quite some fun stories with non-conventional power generation from nuclear material.
So a reactor in your pocket, properly shielded, would be feasible but sure not cheap (and not powerful, for sure!).
