Antimatter weaponry. 1,000 times more powerful than nuclear weapons

originally posted by: stormbringer1701
2.7 × 10^17 joules 64.3 Mt = Star Trek photon torpedo = 1.5 kg antimatter + 1.5 kg matter

You so suck

energy required to blow earth's crust into space:

1.5 × 10^30 = 359 Exatons TNT equivalent = Energy required blow off Terra's crust into space

originally posted by: Jonjonj

originally posted by: stormbringer1701
2.7 × 10^17 joules 64.3 Mt = Star Trek photon torpedo = 1.5 kg antimatter + 1.5 kg matter

You so suck

aaw.

Hmmm.. Utah?

Aw, there's that fog again..

quantum torpedoes are supposed to be at least somewhat more powerful than photon torpedoes (I.E; more than 60 plus megatons TNT equivelent) yet these fearsome weapons are depicted as having no more effect than a hand grenade (if even that- more like one of those illegal fire crackers) when the Borg bombard Dr. Cochrane's Warp research compound.

When a photon torpedo impacts the hull of a 120 meter diameter primary hull (assuming a constitution or enterprise class ship) it essentially has no more effect than a 155 artillery shell. a megaton class nuke will take out a 50 to 100 km diameter patch of countryside.

Brace for 64 MT photon torpedo impact: ...pewf! pewf! pewf! Lol wut?

Why am I always the last to know about everything?!

*sigh*

I thought magnetic fields were used to confine antimatter.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: John_Rodger_Cornman

In order to do damage using antimatter, one would have to possess enough of it to cancel out the amount of matter that one wishes to remove from the battle space. That would be several trillion times the amount of antimatter ever summoned by the technomages of this or any generation of scientists. Bear in mind, it is only very recently in terms of scientific history, that we have developed methods which might be capable of containing anti matter for prolonged periods. Magnetic vacuum flasks of some sort are not readily available.

In order to weaponise antimatter, this would need to change on a massive scale.

That is incorrect.

13 lbs of plutonium at only a few percent efficiency in turning matter to energy set off in Indianapolis Indiana would end the state of Indiana for all intents and purposes.

A few grams of anti matter which annihilates at 99.999999999999999% efficiency at turning matter to energy would be about the same damage.

So to end say new York, you don't need to create an equal amount of mass in anti matter.

You need only grams of the stuff.

originally posted by: stormbringer1701
quantum torpedoes are supposed to be at least somewhat more powerful than photon torpedoes (I.E; more than 60 plus megatons TNT equivelent) yet these fearsome weapons are depicted as having no more effect than a hand grenade (if even that- more like one of those illegal fire crackers) when the Borg bombard Dr. Cochrane's Warp research compound.

When a photon torpedo impacts the hull of a 120 meter diameter primary hull (assuming a constitution or enterprise class ship) it essentially has no more effect than a 155 artillery shell. a megaton class nuke will take out a 50 to 100 km diameter patch of countryside.

Brace for 64 MT photon torpedo impact: ...pewf! pewf! pewf! Lol wut?

You sir are an absolute NERD!!! hahahahahaha I salute you!

originally posted by: Bedlam

originally posted by: Jonjonj
a reply to: Bedlam

Positrons are...oh really, use a possible to prove a possible, I expected more from you sir.

Ahem...are you doubting the existence of positrons?

They are used every day in hospital scanners.

They are quite real.

Anti electrons/positrons....I think it would be hard to create enough, but it would make one hell of a beam weapon in space.

Nasty idea really.

originally posted by: johnwick

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: John_Rodger_Cornman

In order to do damage using antimatter, one would have to possess enough of it to cancel out the amount of matter that one wishes to remove from the battle space. That would be several trillion times the amount of antimatter ever summoned by the technomages of this or any generation of scientists. Bear in mind, it is only very recently in terms of scientific history, that we have developed methods which might be capable of containing anti matter for prolonged periods. Magnetic vacuum flasks of some sort are not readily available.

In order to weaponise antimatter, this would need to change on a massive scale.

That is incorrect.

13 lbs of plutonium at only a few percent efficiency in turning matter to energy set off in Indianapolis Indiana would end the state of Indiana for all intents and purposes.

A few grams of anti matter which annihilates at 99.999999999999999% efficiency at turning matter to energy would be about the same damage.

So to end say new York, you don't need to create an equal amount of mass in anti matter.

You need only grams of the stuff.

1.8 × 10^14 joules 43 kt TNT equivelent = 1 gram of antimatter + 1 gram of matter

Thats about slightly less than 3 Hiroshima bombs (approx 15 KT yield. )

en.wikipedia.org...

In Hiroshima almost everything within 1.6 kilometres (1.0 mi) of the point directly under the explosion was completely destroyed, except for about 50 heavily reinforced, earthquake-resistant concrete buildings, only the shells of which remained standing. Most were completely gutted, with their windows, doors, sashes, and frames ripped out.[46] The perimeter of severe blast damage approximately followed the 5 psi contour at 1.8 kilometres (1.1 mi).

The Hiroshima firestorm was roughly 3.2 kilometres (2.0 mi) in diameter, corresponding closely to the severe blast damage zone. (See the USSBS[51] map, right.) Blast-damaged buildings provided fuel for the fire. Structural lumber and furniture were splintered and scattered about. Debris-choked roads obstructed fire fighters. Broken gas pipes fueled the fire, and broken water pipes rendered hydrants useless.[50] At Nagasaki, the fires failed to merge into a single firestorm, and the fire-damaged area was only one fourth as great as at Hiroshima, due in part to a southwest wind that pushed the fires away from the city.[52]

Radiation[edit]
Local fallout is dust and ash from a bomb crater, contaminated with radioactive fission products. It falls to earth downwind of the crater and can produce, with radiation alone, a lethal area much larger than that from blast and fire. With an air burst, the fission products rise into the stratosphere, where they dissipate and become part of the global environment. Because Little Boy was an air burst 580 metres (1,900 ft) above the ground, there was no bomb crater and no local radioactive fallout.[55]
However, a burst of intense neutron and gamma radiation came directly from the fireball. Its lethal radius was 1.3 kilometres (0.8 mi),[42] covering about half of the firestorm area. An estimated 30% of immediate fatalities were people who received lethal doses of this direct radiation, but died in the firestorm before their radiation injuries would have become apparent. Over 6,000 people survived the blast and fire, but died of radiation injuries.[54] Among injured survivors, 30% had radiation injuries[56] from which they recovered, but with a lifelong increase in cancer risk.[57] To date, no radiation-related evidence of heritable diseases has been observed among the survivors' children.[58][59][60]

conclusion: while a 1 gram antimatter bomb is not to be trifled with it would not destroy a city. our megopolises are many miles across. especially if you count incorporated borroughs and suburbs. a one gram bomb would just P*** us off.

originally posted by: Jonjonj
a reply to: Bedlam

Not at all, how about the production and containment, are you suggesting we can do that, and THEN use it to create a narrow containment field in which to focus an anti matter flow?

Well, we haven't been sitting around resting on the nuke as the ultimate weapon for the last 71 years, now have we?

But in short, yes. You could even have caught it in the unclassifieds, if you'd watched carefully. It was only in the open briefly, though.

originally posted by: Drunkenparrot

LOL, nice one.

I think he was talking about natural cloud chambers. A rather startling and ominous sort of thing, you can get sudden fogs if the atmosphere's nearly saturated and you introduce a burst of ionizing radiation.

originally posted by: stormbringer1701

Brace for 64 MT photon torpedo impact: ...pewf! pewf! pewf! Lol wut?

Photon torpedoes were always so damned variable in effect in ST, especially TOS.

The worst case was The Changeling. They are dumbfounded that one photon torpedo doesn't mangle Nomad, but every time they get hit by Nomad's primary weapon, "it's the equivalent of 90 photon torpedoes!". And they get splattered about four times, with very little damage.

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
Why am I always the last to know about everything?!

*sigh*

I thought magnetic fields were used to confine antimatter.

Well, that's one way. But it won't hold much. It won't work at all on neutral antimatter, and the Coulomb force on charged antimatter will cause it to come out of a Penning trap if you've got more than a smidgen.

when anti-hydrogen is dropped to cryogenic temperatures it become dimagnetic. it is repelled by magnetic fields. it can thus be levitated. if you vary the fields right you can induce it to spin while levitated. in a vacuum this means it cannot contact the container walls or sublimate at significant levels. you could then shave it with a laser beam with the spinning keeping the remaining mass in the round to keep it balanced. The laser would also ionize it so it is no longer neutral. it can then be shunted out to a reactor chamber or a particle accelerator.

originally posted by: stormbringer1701
In other words most of the reactants are separated. this smears out the explosion over time.

Correct! In fact, you get a characteristic "smear" of destruction. Once the antimatter hits the fan, there is a production of ambiplasma that tends to quench the explosion. For example, if you had a dense flow of positrons impinging on normal matter, you get an initial explosion followed by the production of proton/neutron/positron ambiplasma. This tends to insulate the matter under the flow until the plasma disperses and the beam cuts through.

Also the proton-positron repulsion scatters the positron beam.

As a result, you get a rapid series of explosions at the surface and a cylinder of interaction where your scattered positrons encounter atmosphere. The diameter of the cylinder varies with atmospheric pressure, creating a characteristic shape if fired from above.

the current penning trap containment record is several trillion particles for about 17 minutes.

true fact: there are antimatter-fusion or fission propulsion schemes that only require one nanogram or one microgram respectively to do missions to the end of the solar system or to the tau point.

originally posted by: Bedlam

originally posted by: stormbringer1701

Brace for 64 MT photon torpedo impact: ...pewf! pewf! pewf! Lol wut?

Photon torpedoes were always so damned variable in effect in ST, especially TOS.

The worst case was The Changeling. They are dumbfounded that one photon torpedo doesn't mangle Nomad, but every time they get hit by Nomad's primary weapon, "it's the equivalent of 90 photon torpedoes!". And they get splattered about four times, with very little damage.

And beaming a thing into your ship that can produce 90Xphoton torp destruction and survives antimatter explosions (and thus can probably laugh off being inside the ship as it is blown apart and really really wants you dead ) is a really brilliant tactical move as well.

originally posted by: stormbringer1701
And beaming a thing into your ship that can produce 90Xphoton torp destruction and survives antimatter explosions (and thus can probably laugh off being inside the ship as it is blown apart and really really wants you dead ) is a really brilliant tactical move as well.

Yes, it would have been classic if Nomad had suckered them into beaming it aboard, said "HA HA HA PSYCH I AM NOMAD" and let fly with another shot inside the ship.

eta: the guy that voiced Nomad did the voice for most AEDs and Zolls. I keep expecting them to say "Apply the pads to bare skin. I am Nomad"