[swombat]

1 megaton nuke is about 4000 TeraJoules of energy.

10g of antimatter yields about 10^15 Joules - i.e. 1 PetaJoule, or the equivalent of a 2+ Megaton nuke.

If you were holding onto a chunk of antimatter large enough to hold onto you'd be missing half of London.

[Killah911]

Not sure if that conclusion is right. It probably wouldn't result in an explosion and the energy output would probably be in the form of light. Regardless, I'm going with Stephen Hawking on this one: "If you ever meet your anti-self, don't shake hands!"

[burgerbrain]

"It probably wouldn't result in an explosion and the energy output would probably be in the form of light."

That's what nukes do too. Turns out that dumping absurd amounts of light (various parts of the spectrum, but certainly including visible) into the surrounding area absurdly fast tends to fuck stuff up pretty good.

[lutorm]

Yeah, a lot of the power output from a nuclear explosion is in gamma rays, and even air is opaque enough to gamma rays that the energy deposition heats it up to way incandescent temperatures. That's what the fireball of a nuclear explosion is: incandescent air.

[swombat]

Funny that I actually managed to get the maths wrong. 4000 TeraJoules is 4 PetaJoules, i.e. 10g of antimatter is actually a 0.25 Megaton nuke. Still packs some serious punch, but I totally fail at arithmetic, it seems.