Antimatter is a form of matter that consists of particles with the same mass as their corresponding particles in ordinary matter but with opposite charge. When matter and antimatter come into contact, they annihilate each other, releasing an enormous amount of energy.
To determine the destructive potential of antimatter, we need to consider the energy released during annihilation. The energy released per unit mass is given by Einstein's famous equation, E=mc², where E is the energy, m is the mass, and c is the speed of light.
The mass-energy equivalence means that the energy released from the complete annihilation of a gram of antimatter is equivalent to the energy produced by converting the entire mass of that gram into pure energy. In other words, all of the mass of the antimatter would be converted into energy.
The conversion factor between mass and energy is c², where c is the speed of light (approximately 3 × 10^8 meters per second). Therefore, the energy released from annihilating a gram of antimatter is approximately (3 × 10^8)² = 9 × 10^16 joules.
To put this into perspective, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II released an estimated energy of around 63 terajoules (6.3 × 10^13 joules). Therefore, a gram of antimatter could release about 1.4 million times more energy than the Hiroshima bomb.
However, destroying a city or the world would require more than just releasing energy. It would also involve focusing and directing that energy effectively. The destructive power of an explosion depends on many factors, including the efficiency of energy release, containment, and the distribution of the released energy.
In theory, if all the antimatter were somehow perfectly directed and focused, a gram of antimatter could potentially cause immense damage to a city like New York. However, it's important to note that harnessing and containing antimatter is an extremely difficult task, as antimatter is highly reactive and annihilates upon contact with ordinary matter, making storage and transportation extremely challenging.
As for destroying the world, the amount of antimatter required would be many orders of magnitude larger than what we currently have the capability to produce or contain. The energy needed to destroy the Earth would be on the scale of the total gravitational binding energy of the planet, which is approximately 2 × 10^32 joules. Achieving such a level of destruction using antimatter is far beyond our technological capabilities and understanding at this time.
It's worth noting that antimatter has many potential uses in fields such as energy production, medical imaging, and space travel, but there are significant challenges to overcome before we can harness its power safely and effectively.