• Question: What two chemicals would make the biggest explosion EVER

    Asked by to Aimee, Chris, Dave, Greig, Laurence on 17 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Dave Jones

      Dave Jones answered on 17 Jun 2014:

      The biggest explosions on Earth have all been from nuclear bombs, with the most powerful being a Russian hydrogen bomb detonated in 1961 called Tsar Bomba. It was more powerful than both of the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki put together, equivalent to 58 million tonnes of dynamite. The energy there comes from only one chemical, Hydrogen, and the energy release from smashing two Hydrogen atoms together to form Helium. This is the same process that goes on inside the Sun! So, the Sun is basically an extremely big nuclear bomb 😉

    • Photo: Laurence Perreault Levasseur

      Laurence Perreault Levasseur answered on 17 Jun 2014:

      I’m not sure about explosion from chemical reactions. I think it’s reactions from alkali metals make when they enter in contact with water.
      Check it out here (it’s awesome!!)

      But Dave is absolutely right, chemical reactions are NOTHING compared to nuclear reactions! (That’s why I’d say: physics rules!)

    • Photo: Aimee Hopper

      Aimee Hopper answered on 19 Jun 2014:

      I terms of chemicals, Caesium and Fluorine is pretty darn reactive!
      have a look at this

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLOFaWdPxB0 (~3.35)

      now this only uses VERY SMALL AMOUNTS of both Fl and Cs, and you can see it gets pretty hot!!!

      Nuclear reactions have more energy because the forces in the nucleus are stronger than those between the nucleus and the electrons (chemical reactions)

      Antimatter collisions would give out the most energy of all (per unit mass), as all of the mass gets converted to energy, but obviously antimatter is pretty hard to store!

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