Angels and Demons Anti-matter explosion: Is is realistic? - General

Now if you haven't watched the movie, I wouldn't recommend watching this, however It is a really cool scene from toward the ending: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_XbMRRtEJ8[/media] Now I know that the explosion would have looked more like a nuclear explosion and would have glassed half the city, yet if flown high enough, wouldn't it then explode in that fashion? Or something entirely else?

I am not sure about it this but NO. Or it would be much bigger.

Depends how much antimatter was used. If it was more than one gram, the explosion would have been WAY fucking bigger.

Well if it's anti matter then no one would really know as no one's fucked with it yet and if someone were to fuck with it, we'd be screwed.

Ask a physicist.

No. [quote]Scientists debunk "Angels and Demons" antimatter Tue May 19, 2009 7:17pm EDT By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) - "Angels and Demons," the recently released film version of the Dan Brown thriller, focuses on a plot to destroy the Vatican using a small amount antimatter pilfered from the European particle physics laboratory CERN, the world's largest particle accelerator. Some of the world's top particle physicists attempted to sort through facts and fiction about antimatter on Tuesday, and comment on their real quest behind CERN -- to unlock secrets about the origins of the universe. "Antimatter atoms exist, but it is very difficult to make them," Rolf-Dieter Heuer, director-general of CERN, or the European Organization for Nuclear Research, said on Tuesday in a telephone briefing. Antimatter particles are subatomic particles that are mirror images of matter, added Boris Kayser of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, and chairman of the American Physical Society's Division on Particle Physics. When the two come together, they annihilate one another, and their mass is released in the form of energy. In Dan Brown's book, on which the Sony Pictures film was based, a quarter gram of antimatter was thought to be the equivalent of 5,000 tonnes of dynamite, enough to wipe out everything within a half mile or so. "That number was correct," Kayser said. [b][u][highlight]But it is not likely to be used in any bomb, they said. "It would take us billions of years to produce the amount which is used in the film," Heuer said.[/b][/u][/highlight] And while tempting, the notion of using antimatter as an alternative energy source is also impractical, Kayser said. It would take too much energy to make and store. Antimatter has not always been so rare. During the big bang, there were equal parts of matter and antimatter in the universe, Kayser said, and understanding what happened to antimatter is a main focus of research at Fermilab. Leon Lederman, director emeritus of the Fermi Lab and winner of the 1988 Nobel prize in physics, said the new Large Hadron Collider or LHC is meant to be used as a tool. "It's sort of a repetition of what happened 400 years ago when Galileo devised a telescope and turned it to the sky and made all kinds of discoveries -- sun spots, the moons of Jupiter, and the orbiting of Venus around the sun," Lederman said. The hope for LHC, a 17-mile (27-km) underground chamber on the border of Switzerland and France, is that it will confirm the existence of the Higgs Boson -- which Lederman called the "God particle" in a book -- which could help explain how matter has mass. "The God particle ... could provide an explanation for the disappearance of antimatter in the universe," Lederman said. [/quote] [url]http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE54I76420090519[/url]

I think anti matter would consume matter so my guess is yes it is. or a bit bigger

I remember an interview with John Stewart on the Daily Show. He said that scientists that actually have produced antimatter said it's not really harmful at all. I distinctly remember them mentioning that over thanksgiving break they just turned off the machine and the particles dispersed or something. They said that the book was inaccurate but that it also needed something catchy. You can't have a suspense action novel without big explosions.

[QUOTE=Figgis Fiddis;16485869]Ask a physicist.[/QUOTE] Where's Professor Facepunch? He should be here by now.

[QUOTE=McSanchez;16485854]Depends how much antimatter was used. If it was more than one gram, the explosion would have been WAY fucking bigger.[/QUOTE] Well it is around a quater of a gram, probably under. Just to put it into perspective for you other people: 1 kg of anti-matter would explode with the force of a 47 megaton fusion nuclear bomb. [editline]11:01PM[/editline] [QUOTE=Death0nWings;16485879]I remember an interview with John Stewart on the Daily Show. He said that scientists that actually have produced antimatter said it's not really harmful at all. I distinctly remember them mentioning that over thanksgiving break they just turned off the machine and the particles dispersed or something. They said that the book was inaccurate but that it also needed something catchy. You can't have a suspense action novel without big explosions.[/QUOTE] I am pretty sure it is very explosive if it comes into contact with matter...

Obi-wan was the bad guy all along

[QUOTE=Death0nWings;16485879]I remember an interview with John Stewart on the Daily Show. He said that scientists that actually have produced antimatter said it's not really harmful at all. I distinctly remember them mentioning that over thanksgiving break they just turned off the machine and the particles dispersed or something. They said that the book was inaccurate but that it also needed something catchy. [/QUOTE] mixing matter and antimatter results in annihilation, which releases quite a lot of energy so if there's enough of it, shit can get seriously fucked up

[QUOTE=Beafman;16485894] I am pretty sure it is very explosive if it comes into contact with matter...[/QUOTE] How can you be so sure? Are you a physicist? At any rate I'm just typing out what I remember being said at the interview.

How high can a helicopter go? and how much antimatter was used

[QUOTE=cdrw5;16485972]How high can a helicopter go? and how much antimatter was used[/QUOTE] depends on the helicopter and whether it's hovering or moving forward

[QUOTE=Beafman;16485894]Well it is around a quater of a gram, probably under. Just to put it into perspective for you other people: 1 kg of anti-matter would explode with the force of a 47 megaton fusion nuclear bomb. [editline]11:01PM[/editline] I am pretty sure it is very explosive if it comes into contact with matter...[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Wikipedia] The reaction of 1 kg of antimatter with 1 kg of matter would produce 1.8×1017 J (180 petajoules) of energy (by the mass-energy equivalence formula E = mc²), or the rough equivalent of 47 megatons of TNT. For comparison, Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated, reacted an estimated yield of 50 megatons, which required the use of hundreds of kilograms of fissile material (Uranium/Plutonium)[/QUOTE] If I could hazard a guess I'd say that one or two kilotonne air detonation would be more than sufficient to eradicate Vatican city. 50 megatonnes split in 1000 equals 50 kilotonnes, right? Well that means that 1 gram of antimatter would have more than double the effect "Little boy" had when it detonated in Hiroshima back in '45.

They'd all be dead and you wouldn't be posting.

[QUOTE=Death0nWings;16485947]How can you be so sure? Are you a physicist? At any rate I'm just typing out what I remember being said at the interview.[/QUOTE] when antimatter reacts with matter it releases energy appropriate to the mass consumed

Lol, Hollywood!

[QUOTE=Parky;16486036]They'd all be dead and you wouldn't be posting.[/QUOTE] Then I wouldn't be able to get a reservation at dorsia in the near future then?

[QUOTE=Beafman;16485894]I am pretty sure it is very explosive if it comes into contact with matter...[/QUOTE] I am pretty sure none of you know what you're talking about because you're all 13 year olds on the internet with no formal experience in the fields of subatomic physics.

The universe would be gone so no.

[QUOTE=PvtCupcakes;16486129]The universe would be gone so no.[/QUOTE] :raise:

[QUOTE=Lankist;16486123]I am pretty sure none of you know what you're talking about because you're all 13 year olds on the internet with no formal experience in the fields of subatomic physics.[/QUOTE] 18 mind you, but yes, I don't have any experience in subatomic physics. Neither does rest of facepunch, other then doctor facepunch i guess :P

Roughly 43 kilotons of tnt per gram antimatter.

[QUOTE=PvtCupcakes;16486129]The universe would be gone so no.[/QUOTE] lol no, only if you got A BIG FREAKING load of it :P

Hiroshima for reference was 13 kilotons of TNT

I think in the book it's explained that it's 1/4 of a gram of antimatter in the container.

[QUOTE=Beafman;16486090]Then I wouldn't be able to get a reservation at dorsia in the near future then?[/QUOTE] no

[QUOTE=Beafman;16486172]lol no, only if you got A BIG FREAKING load of it :P[/QUOTE] The universe would only be gone if all the matter and antimatter would somehow annihilate completely, which couldn't happen if I'm not mistaken, because there is more matter than antimatter.