# Antimatter weapons **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 8, 2012, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antimatter-weapons/643429 "2012-12-08T17:38:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antimatter-weapons/643429/21 "2012-12-09T15:16:49Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > If we’re assuming some sort of long-term safe-storage technology, it’s reasonable to assume a non-suicidal delivery method. But once the bullet starts traveling in air, it’ll react. The reactions might even slow the bullet enough so it won’t reach the target. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antimatter-weapons/643429/22 "2012-12-09T15:29:30Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > For the record, though, gasoline burning in air _is_ [used in bombs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermobaric_weapon). Well, that’s the thing, an FAE (fuel-air explosive) isn’t exactly a ‘bomb’ but more a specialized form of anti-personnel weapon (we also used them in the first Gulf War to clear minefields). The key difference though is that gasoline (like black powder) is a low explosive, while TNT (like gun cotton) is a high explosive. They’re both chemical reactions, one is just much, much faster than the other. FAEs are also somewhat unique in that they do not contain their own oxidizer, they have to combine with air to ignite. But this is kind of the point, the gasoline is dispersed into a large vapor cloud which mixes it with huge quantities of ambient atmospheric oxygen, then it’s ignited. They don’t have the blast pressure of a high explosive, but they create an enormous fireball (which also sucks up all the oxygen adding to its anti-personnel capability). Plus it makes them simple & cheap to produce. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antimatter-weapons/643429/23 "2012-12-09T20:24:54Z")
> [@AaronX](#): > > But once the bullet starts traveling in air, it’ll react. The reactions might even slow the bullet enough so it won’t reach the target. Pellet of antimatter in a vaccuum, suspended magnetically in the center so that it doesn’t touch the walls, until the container hits something and breaks open. Teleport the antimatter from orbit to destination. If I can come up with two high-tech solutions off the top of my head, there are a dozen more. So, assuming we have a way to store the stuff, we will probably be able to figure out a way to get it to the target. ---
**Author:** ![SandyHook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@SandyHook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SandyHook)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antimatter-weapons/643429/24 "2012-12-09T20:30:34Z")
> [@s0meguy](#): > > 1. What would a 9mm antimatter bullet do to a person? Destroy a large chunk of them or just completely erase that person from existence? For convenience assume that 90% of the bullet’s mass is antimatter. Just something I read a few months ago, no cite, sorry. The amount of matter converted to energy in the bombs dropped on Japan was about the size of dime. And they were in the 20 kiloton range. Which sounds like it compares very well with AndrewL’s post. Could you have a 90% antimatter bullet? What little I think I know about the subject is that matter and antimatter react and destroy themselves instantly on contact. Is this true? ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antimatter-weapons/643429/25 "2012-12-10T14:37:31Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > I wonder if antiprotons could be trapped as anions in a crystalline lattice? One SciFi webcomic writer (Howard Tayler, [Schlock Mercenary](http://www.schlockmercenary.com/)) posits antiprotons stored in a matrix of fullerene - the electrostatic forces from the bound electrons repel the antiprotons so they do not contact anything they might react with. Si ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antimatter-weapons/643429/26 "2012-12-10T15:27:59Z")
Nitpick: You can’t stably contain anything with just electrostatic, or even magnetostatic, forces. When you trap something in a clathrate (such as a fullerene, though smaller clathrates are possible), it’s actually a rather complicated set of dynamic forces that are doing the job. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antimatter-weapons/643429/27 "2012-12-10T16:58:31Z")
We’ve produced antimatter in accelerators, right? Why didn’t they get blown to smithereens? ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antimatter-weapons/643429/28 "2012-12-10T17:05:21Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > We’ve produced antimatter in accelerators, right? Why didn’t they get blown to smithereens? A few particles don’t make much of a bang. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antimatter-weapons/643429/29 "2012-12-10T17:25:42Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > We’ve produced antimatter in accelerators, right? Why didn’t they get blown to smithereens? Thermodynamics, as always. Can’t get more energy out of the antimatter we make than the energy we put into making it. Enough energy from antimatter to blow apart the hardware would have blown apart the hardware while trying to make the antimatter in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antimatter-weapons/643429/30 "2012-12-10T18:26:38Z")
Interesting. Thanks. So, so much for any containment of bang-worthy amounts? Or is “just a question of engineering,” as I’ve heard it put in GQ? ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antimatter-weapons/643429/31 "2012-12-10T18:33:53Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > …Enough energy from antimatter to blow apart the hardware would have blown apart the hardware while trying to make the antimatter in the first place. I don’t think this is strictly true. Factories get destroyed all the time by explosions of the product they are making. It’s mostly a matter of how long it takes to create the antimatter, and they how quickly it explodes. So, if for (a very hypothetical) example, it takes 100GWH to create enough antimatter to make a 10GWH explosion, that still might destroy the machine if the original energy was supplied over one month, and the explosion occurred in one small spot over a few nanoseconds. Granted, this isn’t the case right now, since there is no effective storage mechanism, and the antimatter is being produced “on-the-fly.” ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antimatter-weapons/643429/32 "2012-12-10T19:10:47Z")
First, as mentioned above, the “anitmatter bomb” would presumably be encased in a matter-proof container (super-shielding and magentic containment?) thus allowing it to come in contact with pro-matter as soon as the container is cancelled somehow - preferrable at the destination, not the launch. Any large explosion creates a muhroom cloud. The hot air from the explosion rises, until it loses enough heat and mixes with enough ambient air to cool off and level off. If you watch pictures of spectacular explosions (non-nuclear) in movies, etc, you will see the falling air/smoke as it falls then gets sucked back in to the rising column, providing a rolling “top” that appears mushroom-like. An atomic explosion (fusion or fission) provides several dozen kilograms of vaporized fission or fusion byproducts - plus a huge burst of neutrons which can cause radioactivity in surrounding material. Fission IIRC releases about 0.1% of the weight of the fission products as energy; fusion, IIRC, was about 0.7% of weight. Antimatter particles anhilate each other, realsing far more energy, but in the form of photons and neutrinos, which are not going to create much in the way of residual radiation, I assume. I never got that heavily into studying particle physics. The fizzle theory is interesting. Assuming it is not true… The explosion of antimatter, like the fission and fusion explosions, is a very localized affair. The damage is done by the massive, massive release of energy, creating a huge heat expansion event and shock wave that destroys the surroundings just like a chemical explosion. Look at the observatory mmorial in Hiroshima. The metal girders of the dome still exist, almost directly under ground zero. The initial energy flash vaporised the copper dome immediately (and vaporized people, leaving “shadows” on the sheltered concrete). Without the copper roof acting as a sail, the bare iron giders of the dome were strong enough to withstand the shock wave that arrived shortly after. The building survived because the shockwave arrived from above, rather than from the side where it would have knocked over the wall. So damage comes from 2 effects - the intial flash of energy (photons, light, infrared, UV, etc.) and the following pressure wave. There are additional dynamics an expert can tell us more about, like a “suction” effect after the pressurwave has passed, etc. Craters would be most likely caused by a pressure wave rather than the vaporization effect of the energy burst. Explosive engineering is a fun science. to knock off a chunk of the planet, it helps to position the explosion so that it is “behind” the chunk rather than relying on brute force. (I.e. drill a hole and put the bomb several dozen miles down - hey, an application for that Leidenfrost effect) Plus, once you get to that level of power, even rock is more likely plastic and fluid than to be an immovable block. How big a hole/crater depends on the size of the bomb; but I am inclined to believe Beowulff’s Leidenfrost argument - the bigger the antimatter “bomb” the slower it burns. Alternatively, you could create a matter-antimatter-matter bomb, where the inner core of matter blasts the antimatter shell outward to maximize its contact with matter (when the respective miracle containment field units are turned off of course). ---
**Author:** ![Glazer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a88e57/32.png) [@Glazer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Glazer)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antimatter-weapons/643429/33 "2012-12-10T19:54:59Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > Think about this: > What makes a bigger bang -8 lbs of TNT or 1 gallon of gasoline burning in air? > > Gasoline has 10x the energy content of TNT - the reason it isn’t used as an explosive is the reaction rate is limited to how fast the gasoline can be combined with air. Same with antimatter - it would be like throwing a pound of Potassium into a pool. It might make a fun display, but it wouldn’t produce an enormous explosion, because on the surface can react with the water around it, Make your anti-mater in the shape of a cup. Inject your matter seed stock through the containment into the cup. Reaction starts inside your anti-mater blowing it outward into surrounding matter to continue the reaction. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antimatter-weapons/643429/34 "2012-12-10T19:58:59Z")
Nobody would bother with pure antimatter weapons anyway. The stuff’s far more useful as a boosting agent for existing nuclear weapons. Basically a precisely timed and very small matter/antimatter reaction at the center of an implosion weapon would be much like fusion boosting, but even more powerful. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antimatter-weapons/643429/35 "2012-12-10T21:04:43Z")
Here’s a cite for Bump’s idea of boosted nuclear weapons; [Antimatter induced fusion and thermonuclear explosions](http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0507125) ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antimatter-weapons/643429/36 "2012-12-10T21:27:59Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > I think that kinetic weapons sped up to .99999999c impart more energy than a non-relativistic chunk of antimatter of the same rest mass. I may be off by a few nines, but if so, just throw in some more nines as needed. Actually, its much slower than that. At 86.6% c the energy of a projectile equals the energy that would be produced by annihilation. So a relativistic missile could exceed the energy of a pure antimatter bomb by a large margin. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antimatter-weapons/643429/37 "2012-12-10T21:45:24Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Nobody would bother with pure antimatter weapons anyway. The stuff’s far more useful as a boosting agent for existing nuclear weapons. > > Basically a precisely timed and very small matter/antimatter reaction at the center of an implosion weapon would be much like fusion boosting, but even more powerful. I was going to post the same thing. Reaction time of the anti-matter and matter is not a problem. Fusion is attained in bombs by compressing the core to such high densities and temperatures that the nuclei are close enough to interact. The same densities and temperatures would facilitate the anti-matter annihilation. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ For really advanced technology, a more elegant solution would be to create a chemically active anti-matter bomb. That is, make TNT out of anti-matter. Triggering the chemical explosion would then scatter the anti-matter over a large volume. ---
**Author:** ![s0meguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@s0meguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/s0meguy)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antimatter-weapons/643429/38 "2012-12-10T22:37:00Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > I was going to post the same thing. > > Reaction time of the anti-matter and matter is not a problem. Fusion is attained in bombs by compressing the core to such high densities and temperatures that the nuclei are close enough to interact. The same densities and temperatures would facilitate the anti-matter annihilation. > > ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ > > For really advanced technology, a more elegant solution would be to create a chemically active anti-matter bomb. That is, make TNT out of anti-matter. Triggering the chemical explosion would then scatter the anti-matter over a large volume. The point of the antimatter TNT would be just to spread the antimatter right? Or would it significantly increase the power of the explosion independent of the fact that more antimatter annihilates faster because it is farther apart? What could an anti-matter nuke do? Not boosted, just a nuke made from anti-matter detonated on Earth. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antimatter-weapons/643429/39 "2012-12-10T23:53:56Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **md2000** : > > Antimatter particles anhilate each other, realsing far more energy, but in the form of photons and neutrinos, which are not going to create much in the way of residual radiation, I assume. I never got that heavily into studying particle physics. You’ll eventually end up with nothing but photons and neutrinos, but the first step in the annihilation of a nucleon and an antinucleon is going to be three high-energy pions, which will last some time before decaying (especially the charged pions, which will be more common). And I don’t know for sure, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if those pions can trigger transmutation of ordinary nuclei. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antimatter-weapons/643429/40 "2012-12-11T01:38:26Z")
> [@s0meguy](#): > > The point of the antimatter TNT would be just to spread the antimatter right? Or would it significantly increase the power of the explosion independent of the fact that more antimatter annihilates faster because it is farther apart? > > What could an anti-matter nuke do? Not boosted, just a nuke made from anti-matter detonated on Earth. An anti-matter bomb would act very much like a standard nuke from the layman’s perspective. I’m sure the experts would get excited over small differences in radioactive spectrum or the like, but the basic idea of fireball-\>shockwave-\>mushroom cloud-\>flattened city would be virtually the same. If there’s any big difference it’s that an antimatter weapon wouldn’t have the radioactive fallout afterward. Since we can already build nukes that are more powerful than is tactically useful, an antimatter bomb isn’t even a step forward in destructive capability. (See upthread for some good commentary on that.) Maybe you could make it lighter than a nuke, but probably not so much - even in a traditional nuke, the fissile/fusion material is lighter than the rest of the casing and other bomb components. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antimatter-weapons/643429.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antimatter-weapons/643429.md?page=3)