Antimatter Bombs - for Real?
Dan Brown’s bestseller Angels & Demons hits the big screen today. For anyone who managed to miss the mega-bestseller, the plot hinges on a plot to blow up the Vatican using an antimatter bomb — a tiny device with the power of a nuclear warhead. They may sound good in a thriller, but are antimatter bombs more than just fiction?
In principle, antimatter looks like the ultimate explosive. Matter and anti-matter annihilate each other on contact, releasing energy according to Einstein’s famous formula. This tells us that one pound of antimatter is equivalent to around 19 megatons of TNT. So, in theory, you could make a pocket-sized bomb that would devastate a city. There is the slight issue of containment – the antimatter has to be kept in a complete vacuum and prevented from touching the walls of the container. But once you’ve solved that one you can go out and wreak havoc… just as soon as you’ve got your antimatter.
