19.52 Megatons per Pound
May 6, 2016 9:02 AM Subscribe
Huh. I read once that if you could somehow teleport 17 pounds of antimatter into the core of the earth it would be enough to blow the entire planet to smithereens, but according to this 17 pounds is "only" about as strong as hurricane Katrina. So, great, now I need a whole bunch more antimatter. And a teleporter.
posted by sexyrobot at 9:13 AM on May 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by sexyrobot at 9:13 AM on May 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
I love the given raison d'etre for the calculator:
Ensign Garrovick: "Just think, Captain. Less than one ounce of antimatter here, it's more powerful than ten thousand cobalt bombs."
Captain Kirk: "Let's hope it's as powerful as man will ever get."
The truth about the destructive potential of antimatter is considerably less dramatic. One ounce of antimatter equates to 1.22 megatons, which is comparable to a single modern day H-bomb. In order to help prevent such mistakes from occurring in the future, I present the anti-matter caculator.
posted by clockzero at 9:22 AM on May 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
Ensign Garrovick: "Just think, Captain. Less than one ounce of antimatter here, it's more powerful than ten thousand cobalt bombs."
Captain Kirk: "Let's hope it's as powerful as man will ever get."
The truth about the destructive potential of antimatter is considerably less dramatic. One ounce of antimatter equates to 1.22 megatons, which is comparable to a single modern day H-bomb. In order to help prevent such mistakes from occurring in the future, I present the anti-matter caculator.
posted by clockzero at 9:22 AM on May 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
I would have the destructive force of 3123.2 megatons. This is your only warning.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:28 AM on May 6, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 9:28 AM on May 6, 2016 [6 favorites]
2537.6 megatons here. #readyforswimsuitseasonoftheapocalypse
posted by sexyrobot at 9:38 AM on May 6, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by sexyrobot at 9:38 AM on May 6, 2016 [8 favorites]
This is great. Just the other day I had the thought "How much antimatter would it take to destroy the Earth?", which this page even lists as a given value in terms of energy. Many of the people I was with at the time and I agreed that that somewhere around the mass of a baseball ought to do.
The actual answer is around the mass of a cube of water 7 miles on each side, so I was only off by 15 orders of magnitude (oops). Useful statistics for recalibrating expectations: Little Boy converted less than 1 gram of matter to energy; Tsar Bomba converted 2.3 kg.
posted by 0xFCAF at 9:40 AM on May 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
The actual answer is around the mass of a cube of water 7 miles on each side, so I was only off by 15 orders of magnitude (oops). Useful statistics for recalibrating expectations: Little Boy converted less than 1 gram of matter to energy; Tsar Bomba converted 2.3 kg.
posted by 0xFCAF at 9:40 AM on May 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
Huh. I read once that if you could somehow teleport 17 pounds of antimatter into the core of the earth it would be enough to blow the entire planet to smithereens, but according to this 17 pounds is "only" about as strong as hurricane Katrina. So, great, now I need a whole bunch more antimatter. And a teleporter.
I would assume... although I am not a scientist so this is not safe for me to do... that unleashing the force of annihilation of matter/anti-matter suddenly in the closed-off core of the earth would possibly do a lot more damage than having that same force unleashed in an open place like the atmosphere. It's the difference between burning gunpowder lying in a pile on the ground and lighting a firework with the same amount of gunpowder tightly bound.
I suggest you get 17 pounds of anti-matter and a teleporter and do the experiment. Like, maybe before the election in November.
posted by hippybear at 9:43 AM on May 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
I would assume... although I am not a scientist so this is not safe for me to do... that unleashing the force of annihilation of matter/anti-matter suddenly in the closed-off core of the earth would possibly do a lot more damage than having that same force unleashed in an open place like the atmosphere. It's the difference between burning gunpowder lying in a pile on the ground and lighting a firework with the same amount of gunpowder tightly bound.
I suggest you get 17 pounds of anti-matter and a teleporter and do the experiment. Like, maybe before the election in November.
posted by hippybear at 9:43 AM on May 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
Like, maybe before the election in November.
Lol, true dat. Another wrinkle from a study on mitigating asteroid impacts on the earth I read...even if you manage to blow an asteroid of comet to bits with an atomic bomb, the fragments all have the same center of gravity and it was calculated that the asteroid/comet would re-form within 3 hours. So, not only do we need to figure out how much is required to blow the earth to smithereens, but how much is needed to give those crumbs escape velocity :/
posted by sexyrobot at 9:51 AM on May 6, 2016
Lol, true dat. Another wrinkle from a study on mitigating asteroid impacts on the earth I read...even if you manage to blow an asteroid of comet to bits with an atomic bomb, the fragments all have the same center of gravity and it was calculated that the asteroid/comet would re-form within 3 hours. So, not only do we need to figure out how much is required to blow the earth to smithereens, but how much is needed to give those crumbs escape velocity :/
posted by sexyrobot at 9:51 AM on May 6, 2016
That's why you don't want to use nukes to destroy an asteroid, but to irradiate one side enough that the vaporization of a thin layer of surface material makes it's orbit shift by the tiny amount needed to maids Earth.
Because obviously, you did this years in absence, right? Because you have a robust asteroid deflection program in place, right?
posted by happyroach at 10:01 AM on May 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
Because obviously, you did this years in absence, right? Because you have a robust asteroid deflection program in place, right?
posted by happyroach at 10:01 AM on May 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
Hmm, my dog is more destructive than Krakatoa but less than Katrina. Seems about right.
posted by moonmilk at 10:02 AM on May 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by moonmilk at 10:02 AM on May 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
Your dog's farts, you mean. #amirite
posted by hippybear at 10:04 AM on May 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 10:04 AM on May 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
happyroach: your autocorrect made that comment extra special.
posted by hippybear at 10:05 AM on May 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 10:05 AM on May 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
Some googling tells me that the mass of a fart is 0.0371 grams. The calculator puts that at about one Seymour Narrows. But that's for a human fart - a little tiny dog is probably more of a Tacoma Narrows.
posted by moonmilk at 10:07 AM on May 6, 2016
posted by moonmilk at 10:07 AM on May 6, 2016
The dog farts I have encountered do far more damage than mere antimatter alone. You have to take that into account.
posted by hippybear at 10:08 AM on May 6, 2016
posted by hippybear at 10:08 AM on May 6, 2016
e = dgmc2
where dg is the devours-garbage factor
posted by moonmilk at 10:15 AM on May 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
where dg is the devours-garbage factor
posted by moonmilk at 10:15 AM on May 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
19.52 Megatons converts to (via) 2.27e+13 watt hours, which is 4 orders of magnitude higher than 1.21 gigawatts. Something could be done with that.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:24 AM on May 6, 2016
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:24 AM on May 6, 2016
Dear Legion of Substitute Heroes,
For some reason the Legion of Super-Heroes was not impressed with my ability to produce up to 3708.7999999999997 megatons of destructive force. I would like to schedule an interview at your earliest convenience.
Yours,
Anti-Matter Annihilator Lad
posted by straight at 10:32 AM on May 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
For some reason the Legion of Super-Heroes was not impressed with my ability to produce up to 3708.7999999999997 megatons of destructive force. I would like to schedule an interview at your earliest convenience.
Yours,
Anti-Matter Annihilator Lad
posted by straight at 10:32 AM on May 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
There's a big gap between the Krakatoa explosion level (a bit less than 8 pounds of AM) and the "Dinosaur Killer" impact (somewhat less than 2600 tons). I was looking for something that would be enough to wipe out mankind, which led me to the Wikipedia article on nuclear winter, which is (as you'd probably expect) morbidly fascinating, with a great deal of revision of the various hypotheses following the observed effects of burning Kuwaiti oil wells during Gulf War I.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:02 AM on May 6, 2016
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:02 AM on May 6, 2016
moonmilk: "Some googling tells me that the mass of a fart is 0.0371 grams. The calculator puts that at about one Seymour Narrows. But that's for a human fart - a little tiny dog is probably more of a Tacoma Narrows."
Your dog maybe...
posted by Splunge at 11:16 AM on May 6, 2016
Your dog maybe...
posted by Splunge at 11:16 AM on May 6, 2016
Careful reading will note that all these calculations assume that you get an equivalent amount of matter to detonate with for free. So if you want to know how much of an explosion you, and only you, will cause, divide by 2.
If you're only interested in destroying the earth, I recommend How to Destroy the Earth, which includes destruction by antimatter (both total and just exploding it apart).
posted by Phredward at 11:19 AM on May 6, 2016
If you're only interested in destroying the earth, I recommend How to Destroy the Earth, which includes destruction by antimatter (both total and just exploding it apart).
posted by Phredward at 11:19 AM on May 6, 2016
Just for the record, his values for earthquakes are way low. The Sumatra earthquake, with a moment magnitude of 9.1, corresponds to about 2.3 × 1018 J of radiated seismic-wave energy (or 4.6 × 1022 J of seismic moment, which includes the work done by the earthquake in moving mass around). Since a megaton is defined to be 4.18 × 1015 J, it would be 550 MT in radiated energy or 1,100,000 MT in moment. If you like playing around with this kind of thing, try here.
posted by irrelephant at 12:23 PM on May 6, 2016
posted by irrelephant at 12:23 PM on May 6, 2016
Destructive power is easy. More challenging is to convert antimatter to beauty.
We start with an objective measure of beauty.
One Helen = enough beauty to have "launched a thousand ships, and burnt the topless towers of Ilium."
Troy VII probably had less than 1000 houses, so a mili-helen would involve the launch of one Greek ship (20 tons each) and the explosion of one house. I'll ignore the ship for now, since it doesn't take a lot of power relative to teh house.
Apparently, 1.5 lbs of C4 could explode a house, and it is 1.6x more explosive then dynamite. So one mili-hellen would involve around 2.25 lbs of TNT or 0.000000001 megaton, which would about .000001 ounces of antimatter.
QED Helen was as beautiful as .001 ounces of antimatter.
posted by blahblahblah at 1:12 PM on May 6, 2016 [6 favorites]
We start with an objective measure of beauty.
One Helen = enough beauty to have "launched a thousand ships, and burnt the topless towers of Ilium."
Troy VII probably had less than 1000 houses, so a mili-helen would involve the launch of one Greek ship (20 tons each) and the explosion of one house. I'll ignore the ship for now, since it doesn't take a lot of power relative to teh house.
Apparently, 1.5 lbs of C4 could explode a house, and it is 1.6x more explosive then dynamite. So one mili-hellen would involve around 2.25 lbs of TNT or 0.000000001 megaton, which would about .000001 ounces of antimatter.
QED Helen was as beautiful as .001 ounces of antimatter.
posted by blahblahblah at 1:12 PM on May 6, 2016 [6 favorites]
So, if I did the math right, one Microgram of antimatter translates into 429 kilograms of explosive power, or 944 pounds.
That seems sufficient to me.
posted by MikeWarot at 5:22 PM on May 6, 2016
That seems sufficient to me.
posted by MikeWarot at 5:22 PM on May 6, 2016
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