>The conversion from megatons to joules is 1 megaton = 4.2x10^15 joules. This
>is from a textbook on nuclear physics, so I believe its accurate. Since
>E=mc^2, 1kg of antimatter annihilating with 1kg of matter puts out the same
>energy as a 43 megaton explosion. Thus the 1cc chunks of anti-lead (about 10g)
>are equivalent to a 430 kiloton bomb. The cubic meter would be equivalent to
>a 430 gigaton bomb. Most of this energy is released in the form of HARD gamma
>rays, so even without the impact, the target is going to be really toasty.
I assume that the anti-matter is enclosed in some field which prevents
detonation until it reaches its target otherwise it would destroy itself
on the first piece of real matter (read atmosphere) it encountered.
How big is the containment device going to be? You're delivering an anti-matter
powerplant to the target and then switching off the safeguards?
BTW: I've just finished a series (the series isn't finished yet) of 7 books
about a character called STEN. The empire in this series is run solely by
anti-matter and interstellar travel is impossible without this form of large
scale energy release. It's no bad but a bit dated.
In 1984(?) I attended the 42nd World Science Fiction convention in LA with a
friend. He managed to attend a panel discussing energy or something and the
topic of anti-matter as an energy source came up. (Now I'm telling this 3rd
hand so I don't know all the details discussed but...) The general idea was
that if you place normal matter on the EAST of a compass then anti-matter
would go on the WEST side (opposites and such) BUT they postulated the
existence of two other types of matter (NORTH and SOUTH) which could be
handled separately with ease (ie bare hands) but when brought together
would react just like EAST-WEST matter did. The NORTH and SOUTH matter is
created using lots of energy (solar power, fusion whatever) in fact, more
energy than you get out of the resulting matter interaction. The big
advantage of such matter is that the NORTH-SOUTH powerplant is very tiny,
delivers the energy in vast immediate quantities, is very very safe, and the
ingredients are very very very safe.
Has anybody heard anything about this before?
Bruce... [email removed]