An antimatter weapon would use antimatter as a power source, a propellant, or an explosive for a weapon. No antimatter weaponry is known to exist outside of fiction. The United States Air Force, however, has been interested in military uses—including destructive applications—of antimatter since the Cold War, when it began funding antimatter-related physics research.

On March 24, 2004, Eglin Air Force Base Munitions Directorate official Kenneth Edwards spoke at the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts[1] (http://www.niac.usra.edu/). During the speech, Edwards ostensibly emphasized a potential property of positron weaponry, a type of antimatter weaponry: Unlike thermonuclear weaponry, positron weaponry would leave behind "no nuclear residue", such as the nuclear fallout generated by the nuclear fission reactions which power nuclear weapons. According to an article in San Francisco Chronicle, Edwards has granted funding specifically for positron weapons technology development, focusing research on ways to store positrons for long periods of time, a significant technical and scientific difficulty.

There is considerable skepticisim within the physics community about the viability of antimatter weapons. University of Maryland professor Bob Park refers to the idea as the "doesn't-matter bomb".

According to an article on the website of the CERN laboratories, which produces antimatter on a regular basis, "There is no possibility to make antimatter bombs for the same reason you cannot use it to store energy: we can't accumulate enough of it at high enough density."

The article suggests that the production of "antimatter bombs" would be a foolish economic endeavor because the energy that would be required to produce enough antimatter for the bomb would be equal to the energy that the bomb would release. "If we could assemble all the antimatter we've ever made at CERN and annihilate it with matter, we would have enough energy to light a single electric light bulb for a few minutes." [2] (http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/Content/Chapters/Spotlight/SpotlightAandD-en.html)

External links

• Spotlight on "Angels and Demons" (http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/Content/Chapters/Spotlight/SpotlightAandD-en.html) A discussion at CERN's public website on the viability of the use of antimatter for energy and weaponry.

• "Air Force pursuing antimatter weapons: Program was touted publicly, then came official gag order" (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/10/04/MNGM393GPK1.DTL)

• "Exotic weapons: What's New establishes the 'Excalibur Prize'" by Bob Park (http://www.aps.org/WN/WN04/wn101504.cfm)