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Old February 19th, 2007, 06:56 PM
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Default Re: OT - Physics Question on Anti-Matter

Assuming the matter and antimatter can be combined perfectly to cause total annihilation (which is actually a huge assumption), you just have to plug the numbers into Einstein's equation:

E=mc^2

=(1 ounce matter+1 ounce antimatter)(186000 miles/sec)^2

= 6.9192E10 ounce-miles/(sec^2)

Unfortunately, college physics was too long ago for me to remember the conversion factors to change that mess of units to kilotons. Converting ounces to tons gives an order of magnitude around two megaton-miles/sec^2.

Edit: and Ed posted while I was trying to look up the conversion factor before I submitted the post.
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