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  1. Path: sparky!uunet!mcsun!Germany.EU.net!unido!sbsvax!mpii01036!dietz
  2. From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu
  3. Newsgroups: sci.space
  4. Subject: Re: Antimatter (was propulsion questions)
  5. Message-ID: <20149@sbsvax.cs.uni-sb.de>
  6. Date: 21 Jul 92 07:24:09 GMT
  7. References: <1992Jul17.123315.28475@inmos.co.uk> <6y=mm0p@lynx.unm.edu> <24661@dog.ee.lbl.gov> <1992Jul17.221155.25364@bradley.bradley.edu> <BrLvxL.6w8@zoo.toronto.edu> <1992Jul20.155433.9735@wpi.WPI.EDU> <Brp9H4.3GM@zoo.toronto.edu>
  8. Sender: news@sbsvax.cs.uni-sb.de
  9. Lines: 17
  10.  
  11. In article <Brp9H4.3GM@zoo.toronto.edu>, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
  12.  
  13. |> >Also, security has to be pretty damn tight to keep  people
  14. |> >away from this stuff, I suppose, because releasing it makes it go BOOM,
  15. |> >right??
  16. |> 
  17. |> Antimatter isn't a very efficient explosive.  If you dropped an anti-iron
  18. |> cannonball, it would just sit there and sizzle.  (The radiation would make
  19. |> the immediate neighborhood very unhealthy, mind you.)
  20.  
  21. No.  Dropping an anti-iron cannonball -- or, indeed, exposing it to air
  22. -- would vaporize it in short order.  The antiiron vapor would then quickly
  23. mix with very hot air, and most of the antimatter would annihilate in
  24. short order.
  25.  
  26.     Paul F. Dietz
  27.     dietz@cs.rochester.edu
  28.