Are antimatter bombs for real?

Matter and antimatter annihilate each other on contact, releasing energy according to Einstein’s famous formula E=mc ². This tells us that one pound of antimatter is equivalent to around 19 megatons of TNT . There is the slight issue of containment - the antimatter has to be kept in a complete vacuum and prevented from touching the walls of the container. But once you’ve solved that one you can go out and wreak havoc... just as soon as you’ve got your antimatter.

And there’s the big problem. In Angels & Demons, the antimatter is stolen from CERN , the European Nuclear Research Center. And it’s true—scientists there really have produced antimatter. But only in submicroscopic quantities. “If you add up all the antimatter we have made in more than 30 years of antimatter physics here at CERN, and if you were very generous, you might get 10 billionths of a gram,” CERN’s Rolf Landua told New Scientist magazine . “Even if that exploded on your fingertip it would be no more dangerous than lighting a match.”