# How much antimatter would it take to blow up the world? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 19, 2004, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-antimatter-would-it-take-to-blow-up-the-world/229949 "2004-02-19T04:30:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![vibrotronica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a9a28c/32.png) [@vibrotronica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vibrotronica)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-antimatter-would-it-take-to-blow-up-the-world/229949/1 "2004-02-19T04:30:01Z")
Blow up as in BOOM, like the Death Star. Pulverize, or at least break into large, non-contiguous pieces. And, uh, how much would it cost? ---
**Author:** ![pcroughn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/977dab/32.png) [@pcroughn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pcroughn)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-antimatter-would-it-take-to-blow-up-the-world/229949/2 "2004-02-19T04:42:51Z")
$14.76. For $16.00, you can take out the moon, too. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-antimatter-would-it-take-to-blow-up-the-world/229949/3 "2004-02-19T04:55:03Z")
The [gravitational binding energy of Earth](http://www.fact-index.com/g/gr/gravitational_binding_energy.html) is 2.24e32 Joules. This would require 1.246e18 grams of antimatter. At [thread=239587]$62.5 trillion/gram[/thread], that’s $7.7875e31, ie: $77,875,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 But, you know, $14.76 is not all that far off. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-antimatter-would-it-take-to-blow-up-the-world/229949/4 "2004-02-19T05:09:02Z")
But do they have that much in stock at the Antimatter Store? (They don’t sell it at Wal-mart, do they?) ---
**Author:** ![DarrenS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/977dab/32.png) [@DarrenS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DarrenS)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-antimatter-would-it-take-to-blow-up-the-world/229949/5 "2004-02-19T05:28:31Z")
Try Anti-Walmart. ---
**Author:** ![pcroughn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/977dab/32.png) [@pcroughn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pcroughn)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-antimatter-would-it-take-to-blow-up-the-world/229949/6 "2004-02-19T06:09:03Z")
Dude…President’s Day sale. Duh! ---
**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:** [February 19, 2004, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-antimatter-would-it-take-to-blow-up-the-world/229949/7 "2004-02-19T06:59:21Z")
Dangit, **Achernar** , I was going to post that! But since you’ve beaten me to it, to put that figure into perspective, that would be a cube of water a little more than ten kilometers on a side. Also, standard disclaimers apply about efficiency: You’re almost certainly going to waste a lot of energy blowing shrapnel and various forms of radiation away much faster than needed, and depending on how you apply the antimatter, you might even end up blowing a lot of your antimatter into space before it has a chance to annihilate. If you’re just going to slam an antiasteroid into the planet, and you have to be absolutely sure to get it all in one go, I would probably recommend that you go with between 100 and 10000 times that amount ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-antimatter-would-it-take-to-blow-up-the-world/229949/8 "2004-02-19T07:18:39Z")
> [@Achernar](#): > > At [thread=239587]$62.5 trillion/gram[/thread], that’s $7.7875e31, ie: $77,875,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 But we should keep in mind that mass production (no pun intended) usually lowers the cost significantly. ---
**Author:** ![CelraySoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@CelraySoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CelraySoda)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-antimatter-would-it-take-to-blow-up-the-world/229949/9 "2004-02-19T07:31:28Z")
Just out of curiosity, could this be done? Is there enough resources to make that amount? What is the leading antimatter producing company? Also, what positive applications does anitmatter have in our society? ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-antimatter-would-it-take-to-blow-up-the-world/229949/10 "2004-02-19T08:09:48Z")
And most importantly, if we made that much antimatter, what the hell would we keep it in until we needed it? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![CelraySoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@CelraySoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CelraySoda)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-antimatter-would-it-take-to-blow-up-the-world/229949/11 "2004-02-19T09:13:04Z")
Tupperware? ---
**Author:** ![Pasta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@Pasta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pasta)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-antimatter-would-it-take-to-blow-up-the-world/229949/12 "2004-02-19T09:23:06Z")
> [@CelraySoda](#): > > Just out of curiosity, could this be done? Is there enough resources to make that amount? What is the leading antimatter producing company? [Fermilab](http://www.fnal.gov) produces roughly 10[sup]11[/sup] antiprotons per hour. The SLC (at [SLAC](http://www.slac.stanford.edu/)) makes roughly 10[sup]15[/sup] positrons per hour. To be sure, you could probably squeeze out several more orders of magnitude if all you wanted was sheer production, but you’re still talking ~10[sup]24[/sup] years to get to **Achernar** ’s number. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![vibrotronica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a9a28c/32.png) [@vibrotronica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vibrotronica)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-antimatter-would-it-take-to-blow-up-the-world/229949/13 "2004-02-19T13:58:58Z")
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years? I’d better get started. **Chronos** , do you think a number of smaller anitmatter releases would work better than one big one? Like, say, 10 sites scattered around the globe? ---
**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:** [February 19, 2004, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-antimatter-would-it-take-to-blow-up-the-world/229949/14 "2004-02-19T19:19:17Z")
I would actually try to arrange the antimatter around the Earth in as uniform a shell as I could, and then collapse that shell all at once. Or better yet, bury it as deep underground as I can manage, again in an approximation of a uniform shell, and then release the confinement on all the deposits at once. Distributing it uniformly would minimize the amount of antimatter we’d blow off to space unannihilated, and burying it would minimize the energy lost as radiation to space. ---
**Author:** ![alimarx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@alimarx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alimarx)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-antimatter-would-it-take-to-blow-up-the-world/229949/15 "2004-02-19T23:21:52Z")
> [@CelraySoda](#): > > Also, what positive applications does anitmatter have in our society? Didn’t you see that film in 6th grade science class, _“Antimatter and You”_? Or were you too busy passing notes?