On Thu, 14 Aug 2003 19:58:42 -0700, Steve Hix
wrote:

In article ,
"Keith Willshaw" wrote:

"Eric Moore" wrote in message
om...
Work is being done on a Gamma Ray Bomb. See:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/...018361,00.html

How would a weapon like this compare to the current generation of
nukes?
Just curious.

It sounds bogus to me.

I'm no physicist but a claim like

"Just one gram of the explosive would store more energy than
50kg of conventional TNT"

Needs a lot of evidence and thus far I have seen none

An anti-matter bomb would fit the description, and most
of its energy yield would be gamma rays.


That's what I thought too but they're not talking about anitmatter.
It does seem to have the same disadvantage though of having to "charge
the battery" so to speak. With a fission or fusion bomb you just
have to refine the materials and shape them properly and you get tons
of energy out of it. This one, like antimatter, doesn't exist
naturally for all practical purposes so you have to MAKE it. So while
it might be useful for specialized roles (a big bunker buster with
fewer ramifications than a nuke) it will never be cheap.