Does antimatter look different?

[How2FoldSoup]

Same thing that would happen if you drop in ordinary matter.

So there would be no special cases for the interaction of antimatter and normal matter in such a strong gravitational field? How do we know? It just reacts and releases energy?

Gravity is abit of an oddball among the forces.

The way I understand it, gravity is the weakest, but also has the furtest reach. So in the dept of space, there is only gravity to effect light

That is true, I just don't view gravity being the weakest of the forces merely because at range it's not that strong(when it still is). That's not to say that the EM or the weak/strong nuclear force aren't stronger. I just find gravity unique and "strong" in a slightly different way due to the fact that it can affect photons(and due to K^2's explanations why other forces do not) and affects spacetime. Which I'm now wondering; Can the other forces affect spacetime?

[N_las]

So there would be no special cases for the interaction of antimatter and normal matter in such a strong gravitational field? How do we know? It just reacts and releases energy?

Even if the antimatter would react with matter inside the black hole, the resulting energy is still traped in there. And since the energy kinda has a weight (E=mc^2) There is now way to tell from outside the event horizont, because the black hole as a whole will keep its mass

[Psycix]

Antimatter is quite a misleading name.

Most people (including former me a few years ago) think antimatter is negative matter, as in, a negative amount of mass. This is incorrect.

Antimatter is matter made out of the same particles, with reverse charge. Instead of electrons circling around protrons, we have positrons (positive electrons) circling around anti-protons.

Unless there are some very interesting mechanics in gravity related to charge that we do not understand yet, it is reasonable to assume (and assumed by most scientists) that as antimatter has positive mass (by definition), hence it will also fall down, not up, and have attracting gravity, not repulsive.

So remember: Antimatter means reversed charge, not negative mass!

@Black hole discussion

Assuming it has normal gravity, it will fall in as usual.

It contains the same amount of energy as normal matter, so it will contribute to the black hole in equal amounts.

If it were to anihallate with matter inside the black hole (as far as that is possible), the energy would still be trapped, and since energy and mass are the same thing (E=mc^2), it will still contribute to the black hole in the same way as before. I think it is safe to assume there is no difference between a black hole out of matter, antimatter, energy or a combination thereof.

Edited April 10, 2014 by Psycix

[How2FoldSoup]

Even if the antimatter would react with matter inside the black hole, the resulting energy is still traped in there. And since the energy kinda has a weight (E=mc^2) There is now way to tell from outside the event horizont, because the black hole as a whole will keep its mass

I realize these are hypotheticals but I can't help but ask, what happens if you had an ordinary blackhole and an antimatter blackhole(assuming they exist OR we could create one(yes I know it's an insane amount of mass)) collide. Would the explosive force ever be stronger than the gravitational attraction of the two giant masses?

[Psycix]

No.

(Read my previous post, I seem to have ninja'd you.)

But the explosive force cannot send particles away faster than lightspeed. Hence they (and all other energy unleashed) stay inside the black hole.

[K^2]

Antimatter is matter made out of the same particles, with reverse charge. Instead of electrons circling around protrons, we have positrons (positive electrons) circling around anti-protons.

It's not just a change of charge. Any conserved quantities not carried by photon have to be exact opposite. Strangeness, baryon number, etc. There is also a time reversal, but that's a slightly confusing topic. There is a lot of mirror image quality to it. "Same, but opposite," if that makes any sense. Most importantly, if the universe was built up entirely out of anti-matter, it'd work exactly the same way. Which is which is entirely arbitrary.

But yeah, in terms of gravitational interaction, matter and anti-matter are supposed to be identical. Again, we don't have actual experiments confirming this yet, but it's one of these things that really ought to work that way, and there are many indirect indications that it does.