An electron meeting a positron will apparently release 1.022 MeV of energy. I'm no physicist but my understanding is that this isn't huge (it converts to 1.637×10⁻¹³ Joules). For comparison, fission of a uranium-235 nucleus releases about 200 MeV.

[–] HairyHarry@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (3 children)

ELI5

A zap like a fly in an electrical flytrap or more like a small firecracker?

[–] alpine_jim@piefed.social 2 points 6 hours ago

you'd need several dozen, maybe a hundred uranium nuclei doing fission at once to knock over a coarse grain of sand.

[–] Davel23@fedia.io 8 points 2 days ago

There's a medical test called a PET scan, with PET standing for Positron Emission Tomography. Yes, positron as in antimatter. How it works is the subject is injected with a radioactive substance that decays into antimatter. That antimatter reacts with the normal matter in the subject's body releasing photons. Those photons are then observed by the scanner which builds up a useful picture from them.

Now, I'm not sure how much antimatter is generated in the subject's body, but it's a hell of a lot more than a single positron. And it all annihilates within the subject who doesn't notice a thing. So a single positron is not going to generate much of a bang.

[–] gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org 4 points 2 days ago

you wouldn't feel it

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 7 points 2 days ago (2 children)

a single particle almost nothing. if it was a gram though it would be bad.

[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

A TOS Star Trek novel opens up with a terrorist who detonates a gram of antimatter in a box he's holding (just turns off the power holding it). The city-sized colony was gone.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 2 days ago

yeah its some multiples of hiroshima.

[–] username_1@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 days ago

Or good. We all love big booms! Especially if they are done for science!

[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago

very smol.