Why we should learn to love the (antimatter) bomb.

I've always thought that the use of antimatter for weapons was decades away because of the limited production from particle accelerators. I was mistaken. Conventional Hydrogen bombs use 2-3 kilograms of plutonium for the trigger to fuse liquid Hydrogen into Helium and energy. By replacing the 2-3 Kg of plutonium with just 1 microgram of antimatter, that would produce sufficient energy to set off the same fusion reaction.

Repeat: 1 microgram.
The source is here:
cui.unige.ch...

There are big advantages to this:
No plutonium means no radioactive fallout after the initial blast.
The size of the device can now be made as small as a baseball

I do see one disadvantage: An accidental leak of the vacuum and/or magnetic field would cause an unintended detonation.

Due to the recent advancements at cern, anti matter is far more feasible to produce than ever before. Links:
press.web.cern.ch...

US Airforce persuing antimatter weapons

The high cost of population reduction without the high cost of radioactive fallout is now neatly solved also.
World leaders speak on population reduction

I think this will become an interesting research thread.



[edit on 17-5-2008 by ATS4dummies]

[edit on 17-5-2008 by ATS4dummies]

[edit on 17-5-2008 by ATS4dummies]