• Question: whats the most dangerous type of subtanse in the world

    Asked by to Becky, Clara, Daniel, Simon, Thomas on 18 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Daniel Roach

      Daniel Roach answered on 18 Mar 2014:


      The most dangerous substance? Wow… tough one.

      Anti-matter – that’s really dangerous stuff! If you let it loose, it combines with orniary matter and converts 100% of it’s mass into energy – that’s a huge amount of energy! However, we’d have to get enough of it together first, and making anit-matter in sufficient quantities is a real challenge!

    • Photo: Thomas Elias Cocolios

      Thomas Elias Cocolios answered on 18 Mar 2014:


      Many things have different impacts, and different dangers and are therefore hard to compare with each other.

      As far as particles are concerned, anti-matter is definitely a danger, but the likelihood of coming across it are so slim that I would consider impossible.

      Then you have radioactivity. It is dangerous and can be lethal, especially if not handled properly. At the same time, if you are smart and do not ingest it, you can always run from it (and it will not chase you!) so that you can go back to safety. There are also different types of radiations inducing different damages: alpha particles are the most damaging, but they can be stopped with a sheet of paper. Gamma-rays might seem more benign, but they can penetrate through walls, so they are quite a high risk too.

      There is also elements that are dangerous for you. Everyone knows from a book or a movie that arsenic is to be avoided. As you might have heard, polonium (and actually all the heavy metals) are pretty bad as well. But of all the elements, the worst is actually the beryllium. It is highly lethal and should not be ingested (though the handbook of chemistry says that it is ‘sweet to the taste’… Who ever thought of trying that out!?)

      There is the question of dangerous molecules. There can be quite a lot, from toxic gases to poisons. The one that retains my attention is digitalis extract. You can stop the hearts of thousands men with a few drops, and not in a romantic way!

      You also have viruses, bacterias, parasites, fungi, monster, black hole, … Quite a lot of exciting things to chose from when you scan across the different sizes available!

    • Photo: Simon Albright

      Simon Albright answered on 19 Mar 2014:


      That’s really hard to answer because it kind of depends on the scenario.
      Semtex is really dangerous but only if you have a detonator and a desire to blow something up.
      A really strong alpha emitter is dangerous but only if it’s in contact with you or inside you.

      Plasma might be the most dangerous in some respects, that’s what you get when you heat something up so much all the electrons get stripped off. If you don’t have really good magnetic confinement and you have lots of plasma it’ll basically melt anything in it’s path. Though it will quickly cool down and then stop.

      On the other hand a lump of enriched Uranium just a little bit too big and a little bit too dense will make the biggest man made explosion ever, so that’s kind of a bit dangerous too!

      And of course if your superman the only really dangerous thing is Kryptonite, but I don’t think that’s a problem.

    • Photo: Clara Nellist

      Clara Nellist answered on 19 Mar 2014:


      This is a difficult question to answer! I think I agree with Daniel that antimatter is very destructive! If you had just 1 g of antimatter, it would be three times more explosive than the nuclear bomb that hit Hiroshima. But the problem is how to get hold of it, there’s not a lot lying around, so we have to make it. And at the rate that CERN is making antimatter, it would take a few billion years to make 1g! (so the whole plot of Angels and Demons is scientifically not possible.)

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