Mass itself, is an EXTREMELY dense form of potential energy. Even if a teeny tiny bit of mass was completely converted into kinetic energy (annihilation), it would level a city. Go ahead and type in your mass/weight in kilograms, or the mass of something else, like a paper clip, to see how much energy it has. comparisons
Every red pixel = 1 MEGATON of energy. The combined energy of the 2 nuclear bombs dropped on Japan (Little Boy and Fat Man), would not even register as 1 red pixel. Even 20X their combined power would not even register as just 1 red pixel in this box. This box holds up to 70,000 red pixels.
When you type in your weight (mass) and see how many red pixels it equals, it may not look like much, but each teeny red pixel on the screen represents an absolutely HUGE amount of energy. As a further comparison, since Little Boy and Fat Man are outdated technology, the largest thermonuclear weapon detonated by the USA, Castle Bravo = 15 red pixels. The largest detonated by Russia, Tzar Bomba = 50 red pixels. This entire box, represents MORE than half the energy the entire world consumes in a year.
note: Firefox and Apple Safari are able to populate the box with significant amounts of red instantly, but IE 7.0 lags.
This is a list of different masses that you can type in. Some of these figures are the actual mass of an object, while others are not the mass of the object, but the mass that was annihilated by the object, such as a nuclear bomb.
This 1st section is graps, so all listed values are either the amount of grams annihilated (nukes) or how many grams its mass is (random objects).
ATTENTION: Everything in this list is just an ESTIMATE!
GRAMS
Nuke: Little Boy 0.6517 grams annihilated Nuke: Fat Man 1.0707 grams annihilated Paper Clip 1.4 grams of mass Large paper clip 2 grams of mass Almond M&M 3 grams of mass 9mm Browning Long bullet 6 grams of mass 9mm Parabellum bullet 8 grams of mass Castle Bravo 698 grams annihilated
The numbers listed below are only estimates.
The explosive yield of Little Boy, the first nuclear bomb dropped on Japan. ~0.0006517 grams of mass was destroyed.
The explosive yield of Fat Man, the second nuclear bomb dropped on Japan.
The amount of energy in a paper clip (1.4 grams). That's right, there is more energy in just 1 paper clip than either of the nukes dropped on Japan.
The amount of energy in a nickel (5 grams, 0.05 kg). There is more energy in a nickel, than Little Boy, Fat Man, and a paper clip combined! This of course is only counted the KE (kinetic energy) released by the nukes, not their PE (potential energy), because they weight MUCH more than a nickel does.
About the amount of energy the entire human population digests in a day.
The explosive yield of Castle Bravo, the largest nuclear bomb detonated by the US. 698 grams of mass was annihilated.
The amount of energy that would be released if a pound of antimatter came in contact with you.
The explosive yield of Tzar Bomba, the largest nuclear bomb detonated in the world.
The energy released if the typical adult male (190 pounds) came in contact with his antimatter twin.
The energy generated by the entire world in 2003.
Estimated amount of energy released by the Dinosaur Killer Asteroid (Chicxulub).
The amount of energy the Sun generates every second.
There are many things that contain potential energy. Sugar, gasoline, fat/oil, TNT, gun powder, ethanol/alcohol and propane all contain potential energy. When a molecule of sugar, gasoline, TNT or alcohol is DESTROYED or 'burned', it releases the potential energy. In other words, the potential energy is converted into kinetic energy.
Albert Einstein realized that mass itself, was a form of potential energy. This means that if mass is DESTROYED/ANNHILATED, then its potential energy will be converted into kinetic energy. Einstein constructed an equation that would figure out how much kinetic energy would be produced by destroying mass. This equation is E=mc^2. E is for energy and M is for mass. Energy equals mass times C squared. C stands for the speed of light which is an incredibly huge number. Which means that mass contains an incredibly large amount of energy.
At the very top of this window there is a place to type in an amount of mass. Try typing in your weight and see how much energy would be released if all the energy contained in your mass was released.