History Main / Antimatter

*** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E26S4E1TheBestOfBothWorlds The Best of Both Worlds]]", Riker's plan to kidnap/rescue Locutus/Picard from the Borg ship involves lighting off an antimatter spread, which is essentially a giant fireworks display to dazzle the Borg cube's sensors and give cover to the infiltration shuttle carrying [[TheBigGuy Worf]] and Data.

* ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' shows us that Ron, having been turned into antimatter, makes objects around him disappear when he touches them. To say nothing of how he should have exploded [[TheAirNotThere when he came into contact with the air]]...

** Typically, it is used as a fuel to power [[FasterThanLightTravel warp drives]] and other energy-intensive hardware aboard a starship (such as energy weapons, [[DeflectorShields shields]], {{matter replicator}}s, and base power load for the whole ship). According to the ''Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual'', the warp drive is powered by colliding beams of deuterium[[note]]Deuterium is more commonly known as "heavy hydrogen"[[/note]] and anti-deuterium, regulated by a shaped [[{{Unobtainium}} dilithium]] [[PowerCrystal crystal]] under extreme heat and pressure into an energy form that can be harnessed. The "Warp Core" is the powerplant apparatus that manages this.

* The plot of ''Manga/AssassinationClassroom'' all traces back to [[spoiler:the BigBad Shiro trying to utilize antimatter as a new form of energy by producing it from living humans. Koro-sensei is the result of a captured master assassin who was unwillingly forced into the experiments, with his body converted into gelatinous tentacles to contain the antimatter. Ultimately, the issue arose that the antimatter would continue past the subject's cell division to catastrophic levels, as a mouse that underwent the same procedure blew up the moon where it had been secluded in fear of such an event.]]
* In ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'', Unit 01 shoots down the [[AlienGeometries Angel Ramiel]] with a giant positronic sniper rifle. The fact the beam should explode as soon as it hits the air is glossed over in the show, but [[AllThereInTheManual supplementary materials]] suggest the positrons are "jacketed" with a neutrino field. This [[TechnoBabble makes no sense]] [[VoodooShark at all]], but [[MST3KMantra let's all just go with it]].
* In ''Anime/NadiaTheSecretOfBlueWater'' the engine powering the Nautilus runs on antimatter, in the show described as "particle [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annihilation annihilation.]]" There is a dedication plaque in Atlantian language declaring the ''Nautilus'' is actually the starship ''Eritrium'', recycled as a submarine.

** And then we have [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome the moment]] where [[spoiler:Mu La Flaga]] [[HeroicSacrifice completely blocks an antimatter cannon with his Gundam's shield]], protecting [[spoiler:the Archangel]]. When asked, the director first said the shield's anti-beam coating stopped it; when it was pointed out that the weapon was antimatter, he admitted that he forgot that part.
--->"He's the man who makes the impossible possible."
* The title SuperRobot of ''Manga/CannonGodExaxxion'' is powered by an antimatter reactor. According to the BackStory, the aliens who created it were said to have found an asteroid made of the stuff, which they harvested for fuel until its orbit decayed and it crashed into the nearest planet and practically wiped out their civilization.
* Imperialdramon of ''Anime/DigimonAdventure02'' has an attack called "Positron Laser". Like in ''Evangelion'', it's not explained how the beam doesn't blow up as soon as it leaves the cannon. Although in this case, it's more likely to be just a cool-sounding name and the beam has about as much to do with positrons as it does with lasers.
* Antimatter warheads are ''one'' of the proposed explanations of the "reaction weaponry" in ''Anime/{{Macross}}''. Authors stated that they initially wanted to use straight-up nukes, but due to [[NuclearWeaponsTaboo the cultural conventions]] couldn't show ''the good guys'' [[NukeEm nuking 'em]] right and left. So they thought up a fancy new name, and later proposed AM as an explanation (which is really the same, as antimatter annihilation is ''also'' a nuclear reaction, just other type than most well-known fusion and fission).

* ''Manga/AnimalLand'': When Juu returns for [[CurbStompBattle his revenge]] against [[HijackedByGanon Giller]], you might wonder how someone using [[BadWithTheBone swastika-shaped bone spears]] could compete with Giller's newest [[HybridMonster Chimera]] who can spit a [[NukeEm nuclear blast]], [[HealingFactor regenerate from said blast]], can [[SensorCharacter detect even bacteria]] and has [[TimeAbyss the lifespan of a star]] to boot. The answer is: by giving him an antimatter weapon, of course! When Giller asks how he found that much antimatter, Juu replies that human technology developed exponentially during wartime, making it possible to gather such stellar amounts of antimatter.
-->'''Giller:''' What is that?\\
'''Juu:''' Antimatter. '''3 kg''' of them.

* In ''ComicBook/YokoTsuno'', antimatter plays a big part in ''The Time Spiral''. During the 3rd millenium antimatter was used in warfare and Earth's continents were destroyed, leaving nothing but a ball of magma filled with toxic gas. The last living human on Earth tries to undo this [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong by travelling to the 20th century and stop a man from discovering antimatter in the first place.]]

[[folder:Fanfic]]
* In ''Fanfic/TheSevenHunters'', the Rainbowfaces' Repressor is mentioned to be powered by a milligram of antimatter.

* In ''Fanfic/AChampionInEarthBet'', the Simurgh uses a tinkertech antimatter weapon during her fight with the Avatar. Because of said weapon, their battle ''begins'' with an explosion that causes the (parallel, uninhabited) Earth below them to lose its spherical shape, unleashing a firestorm that advances across its entire surface, and ''ends'' with an explosion that ''vaporizes'' the planet, and melts the side of the Moon facing it from hundreds of thousands of miles away.
* In ''Fanfic/RocketshipVoyager'', the eponymous rocketship is a [[NuclearTorchRocket contraterrene-powered torchship]]. As in the ''Seetee'' stories by Creator/JackWilliamson, CT is mined in the Asteroid Belt and ''Voyager'' happens to be carrying a large supply back to Earth confined in an electromagnetic field-trap. [[spoiler:This serves as a ChekhovsGun when the crew need a WeaponOfMassDestruction to escape the Psiborg Collective.]] In one scene the Chief Engineer has his hand on a [[BigRedButton red lever]] which will eject the entire Cochrane Drive if needed, but knows that if the electromagnetic fields falter for so much as a microsecond, they'd all be obliterated before he could even think of pulling it.

* ''Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow'': "Yes, Dr. Scott. A laser capable of emitting a beam of pure anti-matter." [[AudienceParticipation The traditional response]] is "Then it's not a laser." or "Then it ''doesn't'' matter!" In a bizarre case of life imitating art, [[http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/12/01/antimatter-laser.html this article]] describes a recently-discovered process by which a laser can be used to produce a surprisingly large amount of antimatter.
* ''Film/TheGiantClaw'' has an antimatter shield that destroys anything the military fires at it. [[TheAirNotThere Why it doesn't explode the air is never addressed.]]
* A blatant misuse of the term appears in the original 60s ''[[Film/BatmanTheMovie Batman]]'' film. The villains de-hydrate some of their mooks and smuggle them into the Batcave, where they are re-hydrated. A single punch from Batman or Robin makes them instantly disappear because of flaws in the re-hydration process (they had accidentally used heavy water from the atomic pile). Batman's scientific opinion? They were reduced to "anti matter".

* In the ''Literature/StarChallenge'' books, negatron[[note]]An alternate name for the anti-proton, even if ''electrons'' are also often named so[[/note]] torpedoes and missiles are used as weapon by spacecrafts. There's also a mentionn of anti-matter charges, which are used like the former to cause a [[ArtisticLicenseSpace star to flare and suddenly implode into a black hole]].

* Creator/IsaacAsimov's robots had "positronic" brains, something which Asimov himself would later admit was both ridiculous and impossible once positrons in particular and robotics in general [[ScienceMarchesOn began to become understood.]] His stories continued to use positronic-robots for years after his admissions, but solely because [[GrandfatherClause they were within the already-existing universe]].
** Given some of Asimov's descriptions of how positronic brains worked, it would have been entirely reasonable to {{retcon}} these positrons as merely holes (in the semiconductor sense) -- especially considering that Dirac's view of positrons as "holes in the sea of negative-energy electrons" was still pretty kosher when Asimov started writing his robot stories.
** The initial point of "positronic" brains was that the matter-antimatter interactions would be so quick that they could mimic the speed and complexity of human brains. It's doesn't make sense [[ScienceMarchesOn these days]], but it was passable at the time.
** The problems of a real positronic brain were briefly discussed in fact in one of his essays, and dismissed because Asimov wanted to write stories about robots not about robotic engineering.
* In ''Literature/BearingAnHourglass'', Satan sends Chronos on a fantastic journey. Since Chronos lives backwards, Satan claims he has sent Chronos to a Contra-Terrene (i.e. antimatter) galaxy where, Satan claims, time runs backwards so Chronos can interact normally. Chronos himself is protected by his time cloak. It turns out [[spoiler:Satan's lying, bigtime. Chronos was really sent to a movie studio Satan owns and interacted with scripted, magical movie sets]].
* The primary MacGuffin in Dan Brown's ''Literature/AngelsAndDemons'' is an Antimatter bomb. Also, read [[https://angelsanddemons.web.cern.ch/ CERN's commentary on the book]], it's quite enlightening.
* Creator/EEDocSmith's ''Literature/{{Lensman}}'' universe had a [[OlderThanTheyThink rather early]] (late 1930s) example of antimatter bombs, but [[ScienceMarchesOn they worked a little differently]] than we'd expect. His "Negative Matter" was said to consist of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positron#Theoretical_foreshadowing_and_prediction Dirac positrons]], had negative mass, and some other properties that perhaps hinted at negative energy. Later research has treated antimatter quite differently. It did still cause mutual annihilation with matter roughly as modern science would expect, however, producing copious amounts of hard radiation in the process. Smith didn't think the implications through, though -- the gamma rays were treated as a nuisance side effect, not a far-more-deadly weapon in their own right.
* ''Literature/TheNightsDawnTrilogy'' by Peter F. Hamilton features antimatter as a crucial plot point. In the setting of the series, antimatter exists in a practical form, usable as an exceptionally high-yield fuel for propulsion, generating energy or blowing things up. Antimatter is so effective, however, that is has been outlawed and carrying, using or manufacturing antimatter is investigated and punished by the Confederation. The ban was put in place when antimatter bombs were demonstrated to be especially effective at destroying ''planets''. Still, black market manufacturing stations produce and distribute antimatter.
* Creator/JackWilliamson's ''Seetee'' stories were written around antimatter -- called "Contra-Terrene" (C.T.) in the stories. In ''Seetee Shock'' it is used to fuel a power station broadcasting free energy to the entire Solar System, breaking the back of the corrupt mega-corporation Interplanet. In ''Seetee Ship'' concentrations of antimatter (such as the titular spaceship, built by antimatter aliens) are found to have an unusual property; they move ''backwards'' through time![[note]]This actually refers to the real-world Feynman-diagram interpretation of antimatter, where an antiparticle is equivalent to the normal particle moving backwards in time. That doesn't mean the C.T. ship would do that though -- while argument is still open, the "arrow of time" seems to be provided by the universe at large, rather than the objects within it.[[/note]]
** The main problem in the ''Seetee'' novels (contra-terrene=C.T.=seetee) is building a "bedplate" device that allows matter and antimatter to play nice together through [[AntiGravity paragravity effects,]] so they can build a refinery for antimatter ores, antimatter pickaxes with regular handles, etc (antimatter acts just like regular matter, forming planets, asteroids, and suchlike). While a "permanent paragravity magnet" is theoretically possible, nobody can figure out what metal will hold the charge forever. At least until the protagonist finds a FlyingSaucer that's 50% terrene and contraterrene, that is...
* Aside from occasional use in weapons and as a power source, ''Literature/PerryRhodan'' once featured aliens from an antimatter ''universe'' as peaceful but explosive visitors. (The science was a bit dodgy at the time, with any given chemical element supposedly only reacting with its corresponding anti-element...but the destructive potential of unprotected contact was played to the hilt.) Positronic computers also see widespread use, again as a clear hommage to the works of Isaac Asimov.
* One ''Literature/ChooseYourOwnAdventure'' book involved the PlayerCharacter meeting an "antimatter" version of themselves, created as a side effect of the BigBad's actions. Most of the endings involved the PC and their anti-self touching each other and ending all existence through the violent release of energy.
* In [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Akhmanov Mikhail Akhmanov]]'s ''Literature/ArrivalsFromTheDark'' series, several advanced races use antimatter as their primary (in some cases, only) ship-to-ship weapon. The first novel, ''Invasion'', shows just how superior antimatter is to weapons used up until then by humans: missiles (both conventional and nuclear), plasma cannons, and swarms (like mass drivers but shoot a spread of icicles at high velocity). This forces humans to use this ImportedAlienPhlebotinum in later books, although the fourth book, ''Dark Skies'', shows that even plasma can be effective if used in [[MoreDakka sufficient quantity]] (i.e. a fleet of plasma-armed ships obliterates a relatively small human battle-group armed with antimatter weapons).
** The books also make it a point that antimatter is ''never'' used on a planet, as it would more likely kill you and everyone around you than the enemy.
** The last novel of the series has humans bombarding planets from orbit using antimatter weapons. It takes an hour for a cruiser armed with two turret-mounted annihilators to turn an Earth-like world into a charred rock. The book specifically mentions that this is almost never done, though, as Earth-like worlds are rare, and nobody likes wasting them. The only reason this is done is in an attempt to stop a war with a race of [[LizardFolk [=Reptilians=]]] by destroying their leaders (they are hardwired from birth to obey a strict hierarchy).
** Interestingly, the novels fail to explain how antimatter weapons can damage DeflectorShields. After all, they're not made of matter and, as such, would not interact in an explosive fashion with antimatter. Antimatter should be as harmless as space dust to shields. So much for an author with a physics background.
* Antimatter is an extremely-dangerous weapon in [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Livadny Andrey Livadny]]'s ''Literature/TheHistoryOfTheGalaxy'' series of novels. It is a WMD, as it can annihilate armadas, as well as small moons. Apparently, in the 1000 years of using the weapon (extremely sparingly), scientists have not figured out how to control the yield.
** One of the novels, ''The Backup Spaceport'', features new ''Stiletto''-class [[SpaceFighter Space Fighters]] powered by an antimatter reactor (all reactors before were fusion-based). The difference is that it does not use regular antimatter but the so-called "Vetletsky antiparticles", which only react with tritium. This ensures that, even if antimatter containment is lost during battle, the ship is not destroyed by matter/antimatter reaction.
* In Alastair Reynolds's ''Literature/RevelationSpace'' (and its [[TheVerse universe]]), antimatter weapons are small, hard to get, and ''extremely'' destructive; one character has one bomb ''implanted in his eyes'' (the eyes are artificial) and could destroy a kilometre long spacecraft with a thought. Small projectile weapons firing shielded antimatter fragments are also known[[note]]called "Ack-am" in the stories, with the am an acronym for Anti-Matter[[/note]], but seldom used outside of serious conflicts between very well equipped parties.
* Creator/LarryNiven's ''Literature/KnownSpace'':
** "Flatlander" (the short story, not the novel) concerns a visit to a planet that -- unknown to the explorers -- is made of antimatter.
** In a later book, it is discussed that the crew of a ship armed with antimatter weapons will expend their ammo at the first possible justified opportunity, for their own safety's sake.
** One weapon in the setting, "Silver bullets", use antihydrogen warheads that not only create an explosion, but also flood the ship with neutrons from the destroyed atoms. One kzin who hears about it considers it an idiotic concept, as a ship hit with one would be rendered worthless as a prize.
* In ''Literature/DragonridersOfPern'', the ships that brought the original colonists to Pern had antimatter-fueled drives, and remained in orbit after being stripped of anything useful. This comes into play in ''All the Weyrs of Pern'', when those same two-thousand year old engines are deliberately detonated in an attempt to alter the Red Star's orbit.
* In the ''Literature/HumanxCommonwealth'' novel ''The End of the Matter'', a LostSuperweapon is used to eliminate the threat of a rogue black hole by summoning a "white hole" composed of antimatter from AnotherDimension; the two then begin a process of mutual annihilation over hundreds of thousands of years. It is noted by one of the awed protagonists that it was a good thing they didn't try to set off the device inside the black hole, or the entire process would have occurred at once.
-->'''Bran Tse-Mallory:''' "I've always wanted to see a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasar quasar]], but not from up close!" [[labelnote:Science Marches On]] -- This is no longer the modern definition of a quasar, but the novel was written prior to the current definition.[[/labelnote]]
* The ''Literature/{{Sten}}'' series has Anti-Matter Two, which is technically not antimatter as we know it but an alternate-universe equivalent with similar properties. It is used to power starship engines and as ammunition in weapons (ranging from the tiny amount in Willygun bullets to the large amount in [[EarthShatteringKaboom planetbuster]] missiles).
* The ''Literature/{{Uplift}}'' series features antimatter beams as merely one of a truly staggering variety of weapons employed by Galactic races. When you have weapons that alter probability or shunt you into another universe, mere antimatter seems tame by comparison.
* Literature/TheCulture uses CAM - collapsed anti-matter a.k.a. ''anti-neutronium'' in their planet-smashing grade weaponry, and as a sort of minefield. It isn't nearly as powerful as their more serious warship-grade weapons such as Gridfire, and does not get used or mentioned after ''Literature/ConsiderPhlebas'', as the later books are set several hundred years later, and technology has marched on.

** The Iln war machines in ''Matter'' have systems to generate large enough quantities of antimatter to shatter a shellworld, given enough time.
* In Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's ''Literature/ALordFromPlanetEarth'' trilogy, anti-sodium and anti-helium are used by the protagonist in the second book during a space battle. The enemy ship, however, figures out how to defend against each attack.
* Martin Gardner's ''[[Literature/AliceInWonderland The Annotated Alice]]'' goes into a rather amusing digression over Alice's concerns about whether or not milk from the Looking Glass world is safe to drink. While much of it is devoted to the concept of MirrorChemistry (and is indeed one of, if not ''the'' most familiar examples of the topic in the popular consciousness), Gardner also speculates that Looking Glass milk could be made of antimatter. Either way, Alice's worries are pretty well justified.
* In ''Literature/TheKillingStar'', we detect incoming alien speceships by looking for the presence of 0.5 [=MeV=] gamma ray photons -- photons emitted when positrons and electrons annihilate each other in an antimatter rocket engine.
* The ships in ''Literature/TourOfTheMerrimack'' use antimatter reactors. This poses some tactical problems; you can't shoot down a ship in atmosphere without the risk of causing a massive antimatter explosion.
* Antimatter is used as a power source in Creator/JackMcDevitt's ''Literature/InfinityBeach'', but it is carefully regulated. The novel begins with a massive explosion apparently caused by antimatter of unknown origin.
* ''Literature/DreadEmpiresFall'' has this as both fuel and warhead. In fact, missiles burn fuel until they reach their target, and whatever's left goes into exploding. It's one of the few justified cases of ArbitraryWeaponRange. It also one of the factors that contributes to the missiles having a very short tactically-viable range, in conjunction with point defense.
* Antimatter rockets and spiked antimatter/fusion rockets are a popular propulsion method in Creator/RobertReed's ''Literature/GreatShip'' universe. Since it's so effective at pushing the ships, the ships need only a relatively tiny amount of it for interstellar voyages.
* Some stories from the ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' feature [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Positronic_processor positronic processors]] (likely an Asimov ShoutOut).
* ''Literature/TheFlightEngineer'' by Creator/SMStirling and Creator/JamesDoohan uses antihydrogen as the MacGuffin in a NoBloodForPhlebotinum scenario. A religious extremist faction that by virtue of location has a monopoly on a naturally occurring A-H field cuts off all exports to [[TheFederation the Commonwealth]][[note]]DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything[[/note]] to try and cause [[ApocalypseHow Galactic/Societal Collapse]]. The A-H is so valuable because interstellar travel depends on its use as a fuel in matter/antimatter reactors, and creating the stuff in particle accelerators is prohibitively expensive on the scales required in the series.
* In the ''Literature/{{RCN}}'' universe, the High Drive that provides deep space propulsion for both ships and their missiles uses matter-antimatter annihilation to produce thrust. The reaction isn't complete, though, so it's only used in vacuum, as antimatter that hadn't reacted in the thrust could interact with atmospheric molecules, damaging or even destroying the engines. Due to this, lower-powered plasma thrusters are used for atmospheric maneuvering.
* Creator/GregEgan's ''Literature/{{Orthogonal}}'' trilogy plays it surprisingly straight with "[[TitleDrop orthogonal]] matter", considering that the trilogy's physics are very different from our own. In this setting, the antimatter-like properties are caused by matter coming in contact with other matter that is traveling along a different trajectory through "time". The effects are [[MadeOfExplodium pretty much the same]].
* An old sci-fi novel (can't remember the name) involves a distant future, in which an interstellar expedition is planned using an antimatter-powered ship, whose warp-like STL drive can allow them to travel at an extremely-high percentage of the speed of light. The problem of there not being enough antimatter on Earth is solved by the lucky passing of a rogue antimatter planet through the Solar System. The initial plan is to land the ship (shielded against antimatter) on its surface, then send a shielded crawler to grab a sizable chunk of rock and bring it back to the ship. Unfortunately, they don't anticipate the planet being inhabited. The primitive locals surround the crawler and start praying to it. With the timer counting down on the crawler's shield, its crew decides to let it run down rather than drive through the praying locals to get to the ship. The crawler explodes, [[SenselessSacrifice killing the locals anyway]] and nearly destroying the ship. The remaining crewmembers instead try to capture one of the small asteroids circling the planet and manage to do it (it's never questioned why this idea wasn't tried first). The amount of antimatter last them for most of their journey even as far as one of the Magellanic Clouds. However, on the way back, the last remaining crewmember runs out of antimatter, and the ship has to coast at slow sublight speeds back to Earth for 150 years. Luckily, the manner in which he chooses to commit suicide rather than grow old allows future humans to revive him. By that point, FTL travel is possible and can get people to another galaxy in an instant.
* The ''Literature/EmpireFromTheAshes'' trilogy features these starting with the second book. They are treated as serious weapons along with and gravitonic warheads.
* Creator/GregBear's Forge of God has the Earth destroyed by two mass, one of neutronium and the other of anti-neutronium. These orbit the earth, inside it, until they meet. The anti-neutronium one does cause some problems from the energy released as it plows through the inside of the Earth, but once the two masses collide, the energy released is [[EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt greater than Earth's gravitation binding energy]]. In its sequel Anvil of Stars, some fighter ships, and pilots, are turned to anti-matter by the baddies. They figured it out when one tried to dock with the main ship. The others slowly died because anti-matter isn't suited for living things, but they hung around long enough for the protagonist's love interest to say good-bye.
* In ''Literature/LunaMarine'' by Creator/IanDouglas, the discoveries of [[AncientAstronauts Ancient Astronaut]] ruins on Mars and the Moon kick off an ArchaeologicalArmsRace between the US and the [[UnitedNationsIsASuperpower UN]]. Both sides are working on antimatter-powered ships (tiny amounts of antimatter are dropped into tanks full of water; the resulting matter/antimatter reaction turns the water into plasma that is then expelled through the engines, allowing the ship to accelerate at 6 gravities). While the US has been manufacturing its antimatter stores the old-fashioned way (i.e. particle accelerators), UN scientists have managed to locate and reactivate an [[{{Precursors}} Ahn]] device that produces a steady stream of antiprotons. They first adapt it for use as a particle beam weapon, which only really works because they're on the Moon (i.e. no air particles to react to antiprotons). UN scientists are still struggling to make the antimatter engine work. If the UN ship is launched ahead of its US counterpart, the war will be over, as the ship's speed and firepower will be unrivaled in the system, and the antimatter cannon will be able to rain destruction on American cities.
* Kraken in ''Literature/UnlimitedFafnir'' has the ability to shoot antimatter projectiles. These clearly don't act like normal antimatter, as they liberate much less energy upon hitting their target than would be expected from their size. In-universe, the reason why they're dangerous is that they annihilate any matter on contact, even the super-tough alloy mithril. Mitsuki gains a weaker version of this power after killing Kraken.
* ''Literature/TheWorldAtTheEndOfTime'' by Creator/FrederikPohl: Human intestellar ships use matter-antimatter annihilation as power source, and together with [[SolarSail Solar Sails]] as propulsion. [[spoiler: Hundreds of years laterin the colony's timeframe one of those ships, the "Ark", blows up due to precisely matter-antimatter annihilation causing things to go ''really'' pear-shaped for the main protagonist]].
* The novelization of ''Film/TheBlackHole'' describes the "USS Cygnus" as being powered by matter-antimatter annihilation, four of her engines being described by [[MadScientist Reinhardt]] as able to give as much energy as the one used in Earth in a year. [[spoiler: Increased damage to them caused by the destruction of the "USS Palomino" is what ultimately dooms it, as the working ones cannot produce enough energy for the field protecting the ship of the black hole's tidal forces despite Reinhardt ordering increases of their [[TimTaylorTechnology power output]]]]
* In ''Literature/TheJenkinsverse'', antimatter weapons are not frequently used, but do exist and are as devastating as one might expect. Notably, one of the agents of the BigBad uses an antimatter bomb to cover his tracks when he's been cornered by the authorities, teleporting away and unleashing an explosion that wipes [[spoiler: the city of San Diego and most of the surrounding county, along with parts of Mexico]] off the face of the earth in spectacular fashion. This of course kicks off a galactic war as humanity goes on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge.

* ''Literature/LaszloHadronAndTheWargodsTomb'': The starships in the novel are powered by antiproton reactors [[spoiler:and the Wargod is crippled using a bomb containing "antithorium".]]
* The title ColonyShip of ''[[Literature/{{Flood}} Ark]]'' relies on antimatter to fire its AlcubierreDrive. A deadly containment breach proves manufacturing a usable supply on Earth impractical, but the crew finds all the necessary fuel in Jupiter's magnetosphere.

* An episode of ''Series/LostInSpace'' also has an evil counterpart of John Robinson (played by the same actor) from an antimatter universe, but no explosions.

** The serial "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E2PlanetOfEvil Planet of Evil]]" also features antimatter treated more as a radioactive substance than an explosive one.
** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS9E4TheMutants The Mutants]]", the Doctor claims that an antimatter explosion will turn everyone into "un-people un-doing un-things un-together," which is an awfully convoluted way of saying "dead."
** Omega in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS10E1TheThreeDoctors The Three Doctors]]" is trapped in an antimatter universe on the other side of a black hole. Handwaved in that the Doctor and friends are "processed" in some way when they go through the black hole -- Dr. Tyler, the physicist, explains that they shouldn't even be there at all!
* Antimatter is a common source of energy in ''Franchise/StarTrek''. In a post-scarcity civilization where [[MatterReplicator matter can be formed out of energy by machines]], antimatter retains value due to the fact that generating it is dangerous.

*** And in the episode [[Recap/StarTrekS2E13Obsession "Obsession"]], it's used for a demolition charge. One ounce of antimatter reacting with matter supposedly produces an explosion that [[EarthShatteringKaboom blows half the atmosphere off an Earth-like planet]]. While the basic idea of an antimatter bomb isn't too far off, the numbers certainly are; in reality, an ounce of antimatter annihilating an ounce of normal matter would, as a bomb, have a yield of only a couple of megatons. You'd need at least some millions of ''tonnes'' of antimatter to get the kind of effect they describe. (Kirk mentions to Spock in this episode that he would hope weapons would not get more advanced than this.)
** In ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E27TheAlternativeFactor The Alternative Factor]]", there are two versions of Lazarus, one made of matter from our universe and one made of antimatter from a parallel universe. If they ever get together in either universe, both universes will be destroyed. This would not happen in real life, although you'd get a sizable explosion. They also have no problem interacting with other objects and people from the opposite universes, even though that should have the same exact effect.
** In another TOS episode, "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E6TheDoomsdayMachine The Doomsday Machine]]", the titular planet-eating menace fires a beam that Decker described as "Pure antiproton, absolutely pure!"
*** Which should not damage a starship with working DeflectorShields. Antiprotons would have no reason to interact explosively with an EM field (or a graviton field, depending on which fluff explanation you prefer), although they would certainly wreak havoc if they touched the hull underneath (which, indeed, it very much did to the starship ''Constellation'').
*** The machine is also said to have negated the stored antimatter aboard the ''Constellation'' in some unexplained way. This might explain why neither ''Enterprise'' nor ''Constellation'' are seen attacking the machine with photon torpedos.
** In ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', android Data has a "positronic brain" in a deliberate homage to Asimov. Having Star Trek levels of technology still makes the concept no more plausible, though.
** In ''[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E26S4E1TheBestOfBothWorlds The Best of Both Worlds]]'', Riker's plan to kidnap/rescue Locutus/Picard from the Borg ship involves lighting off an antimatter spread, which is essentially a giant fireworks display to dazzle the Borg cube's sensors and give cover to the infiltration shuttle carrying [[TheBigGuy Worf]] and Data.

* In the season 2 premiere of ''Series/{{Warehouse 13}}'', antimatter is stolen from CERN to power one of the villain's inventions.
* In an episode of ''Series/BuckRogersInTheTwentyFifthCentury'', a character is badly injured from contact with a ''single particle'' of antimatter.
* The ''Series/UltramanGaia'' episode "Challenge from Anti-Space" had a MonsterOfTheWeek named, well, Antimatter. It was a starfish-like EldritchAbomination made out of antimatter and able to generate a field that converted all matter within into antimatter, which meant that XIG and Gaia had to be extra careful to make sure the monster and its field remained stable, lest the entire Earth be destroyed by the violent meeting between matter and antimatter.
* In an episode of ''Series/{{Eureka}}'', a device is activated by the mere presence of ''contained'' antimatter nearby, when both are stored in a bank vault. Apparently a town full of geniuses can't figure out that antimatter by itself is ''not an energy source'' nor is it radioactive. It appears to be a greenish liquid stored in a test tube. Unless you want it to blow up, it should be stored in a vacuum environment kept away from the container walls by a magnetic field.

* ''Roleplay/DarwinsSoldiers'' has an Anti-matter universe. The ability of this universe to interact with our matter universe is [[AppliedPhlebotinum dependent on plot necessity]].

* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}: Ultratech'' briefly discusses antimatter. One microgram is enough to vaporize a normal human and incredibly expensive. There are also stats for ''antimatter bullets''.
* A ''TabletopGame/CthulhuTech'' supplement had a weapon fired antimatter at relativistic speeds after burning a vacuum in the air with a laser.
* In ''TabletopGame/TranshumanSpace'', antimatter is manufactured on Mercury, using solar energy to drive the particle accelerators, and used among other things to catalyse the most advanced fusion drives.
* In ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase'' antimatter is also manufactured on Mercury, and used in strategic weapons and as a power source for the emergency farcaster implant, which makes your head explode when you use it.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Starfire}}'', starship missiles can be fitted with ordinary nuclear warheads, or with antimatter warheads. Antimatter warheads are more powerful, but are also much more dangerous to the ship carrying them. If an enemy destroys a ship's missile hold, the unfired nuclear missiles stored in it will simply be destroyed and become useless, but the unfired antimatter missiles in it will detonate.

* ''VideoGame/AntimatterDimensions'': The entire game revolves around you collecting antimatter by dimensions which produce antimatter or lower dimensions. In the news feed, it mentions lots of things made of antimatter. In reality, those things will annihilate with the air or the ground.
* The ''Galactic Armory'' mod for ''Videogame/StarRuler'' adds antimatter generators, thrusters, and weapons. Antimatter has the advantage of needing tiny amounts of fuel storage, it has the most efficient and nearly most powerful thrusters, and the antimatter weapons are devastatingly powerful. However, the generators are extremely expensive, and very, ''very'' [[MadeOfExplodium fragile]]. Ships carrying antimatter tend to explode violently when their armor is breached.
* ''VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl'': WordOfGod states that the [[OlympusMons Legendary Pokémon]] Giratina is supposed to be the living personification of antimatter, and that it and its world are constructed of antimatter. Functionally, Giratina switches forms when in your world - Earth (or Poke-Earth, whatever) - and its original state only occurs in its own world, unless you go back into its world and bring back the [[AppliedPhlebotinum Griseous Orb]], which lets it retain its natural form.
* Traditional capship power source, in the ''VideoGame/WingCommander'' universe. Also used on the Excalibur and its descendant, the Dragon.
** Several capital warships also use anti-matter guns to engage targets, occasionally to the player's chagrin given that only one or two blasts are required to destroy their fighter[[note]]and the bombers who are the only ones to survive one hit often have their targeting computers destroyed, prohibiting them from using the torpedoes that are their entire reason to be employed[[/note]].
** In ''VideoGame/WingCommander'', [=M/AM=] plants are the primary powerplant for capital ships, and also serve to power the ''Excalibur'' and ''Dragon'' superfighters in [=WC3=] and [=WC4=], respectively.
* ''[[VideoGame/SamAndMaxFreelancePolice Sam and Max: The Devil's Playhouse]]'' has [[spoiler: Sam and Max destroy the entire [[PhantomZone Penal Zone]]]] with an "antimatter bomb".
* In ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars'', Antimatter is the final level of reactor technology development. Strangely, however, M/AM ships have very small explosions compared to normal ones, even though Antimatter is far more destructive when uncontained. There are also antimatter weapons. Developers have stated that they will not be inventing any new power source beyond Antimatter for the sequel, but instead have techs that optimise its use.
* The aliens in ''VideoGame/UFOAlienInvasion'' use spacecraft powered by anti-matter. Also the Dev team did their homework as it says that it would take humans millions of year at current production rates to make a gram of antimatter. The Aliens usually have several grams in their smallest space ship.

* ''Franchise/MassEffect''
** In the setting, military starships are propelled by matter-antimatter reactions created by combining antiprotons with hydrogen atoms. The stations that produce them are massive facilities often located around high-energy stars for solar power and are high-value targets in wartime, as are the refineries. Antimatter is also used as a weapon similar to nukes, but are much rarer in comparison and strictly regulated. Still, it's common enough that a single mid-sized private company can get their hands on at least several warheads loaded with the stuff, if Parasini's description of the Noveria Development Corporation's "sterilization" procedures are any indication. [[GodzillaThreshold The worst case scenario]] involves vaporizing the affected compound with antimatter warheads from orbital battle stations.
** The large bomb that the turians plant on Tuchanka seems to utilize antimatter, as its yield to weight ratio is outright impossible for a regular fusion weapon (which caps out around 84 kilotons per kilogram for deuterium and helium-3; or more like 6-16-kilotons for modern fission-fusion weapons). To wit, it kills every living thing in a 500 kilometer radius if it goes off. To get a near-100% death rate against regular humans at that distance (much less the residents of [[WorldOfBadass Tuchanka]]) would require [[https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/classic/ about 7.2 teratons of TNT equivalent]], or [[HiroshimaAsAUnitOfMeasure five hundred million times the yield of the Hiroshima bomb]]. You can see why the stuff is so highly regulated.
** Cut content from ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' has a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGKQhuDW6B4 groundskeeper]] saying admiring things about a potent quarian drink called "thruster fuel", which obviously can't be made out of what he speculates.
--> "Must be ninety-nine percent alcohol! I think they distill it from raw antimatter. ''Antimatter alcohol''..."
* ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsW'': The Earth Federation never gets the N-Jammer Canceler technology, which played an important role in the plot of ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED'' by allowing the Federation to use nuclear weapons. In the game, antimatter warheads are substituted for the nukes as needed.
* In ''VideoGame/StarOceanTheLastHope'' an alternate earth is destroyed by an unstable antimatter engine.
* In ''VideoGame/EVEOnline'', hybrid weaponry such as blasters and railguns can be loaded with anti-matter charges, there are readily available anti-matter warheads for everything from dumbfire rockets to super-capital torpedos, and Gallentean spaceship technology uses anti-matter as a fuel source.
* An antimatter bomb is the LostSuperweapon MacGuffin of ''VideoGame/MissionThunderbolt''.
* In ''VideoGame/XCOMUFODefense'', the aliens use Antimatter as a power source for their weapons and [=UFOs=]. Said Antimatter is generated by an [[GreenRocks alien element called Elerium-115]].

* ''VideoGame/FreeSpace'' has two missiles that use Antimatter warheads in the first and second games, called the Tsunami Bomb and Helios Torpedo, respectively. They're the weapon of choice for bombers attempting to take out capital ships. That "carpet-bombing with antimatter" is the standard course of killing a starship in this game should tell you something about their armor.
* A sign on the wall in ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'' advises you to:
--> ''Know your allergens. Pollen. Animal Dander. Plastics. [[BreadEggsMilkSquick Antimatter]].''
* In the two most recent games in the [[VideoGame/{{X}} X-Universe]] series, the Terran corvette weapon is the matter/antimatter launcher, a coilgun that fires a bomb containing matter and antimatter separated by a force field. When the force field is compromised by impact or by reaching the end of its range, the matter and antimatter mix with [[StuffBlowingUp the usual result]]. According to fluff, Terran ships also use matter/antimatter for power generation. Finally, [[VideoGame/XBeyondTheFrontier the first game's]] novelization ''Farnham's Legend'' mentions that the Terran-built Xperimental Shuttle uses a matter-antimatter rocket for propulsion, which grants it much higher delta-''v'' than any Community of Planets engine. By the later games the Argon have reverse-engineered the engine and now everyone uses it.
* Protoss Scouts in ''VideoGame/StarCraft'' are armed with antimatter missiles for air-to-air combat.
* In the Polaris questline in ''VideoGame/EscapeVelocity Nova'', you can equip your ship with a matter/antimatter reactor. [[HigherTechSpecies The Polaris are several centuries ahead of the rest of humanity technologically]]; everyone else uses fission (either traditional or liquid-thorium-fueled).

* As of version 1.036, the final building in ''VideoGame/CookieClicker'' is the Antimatter Condenser, which [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin condenses the antimatter of the universe into cookies]], according to the description.
* ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'' has the standard photon torpedoes of Trek-lore and adds Antiproton beams to the mix that offer an extra 20% critical severity compared to other beams. Typically used by [[TheLegionsOfHell the Fek'lhri horde]], [[TheAssimilator the Borg]], [[ScaryDogmaticAliens the Undine]] and [[spoiler: [[AbusivePrecursors the Iconians]]]].
* The ultimate weapon to be used against the AlienInvasion in ''VideoGame/{{Shadowgrounds}}'' is an antimatter bomb. [[spoiler: It turns out that the bomb was made using technology given to humans (and numerous other alien species) by the invading aliens, who realized after [[EarthShatteringKaboom their planet was destroyed in an antimatter explosion]] just how bad an idea this was and set out to reclaim the antimatter technology they gave out, by force if necessary.]]
* Antimatter is the fuel of choice for starships in ''VideoGame/StarControl'' and mentioned by Commander Hayes to be expensive to make, especially in the large quantities required for your flagship -however the Melnorme sells it quite cheaply-. It serves also as weapon in the Umgah ships, said to use antimatter cones, and especially the Utwig bomb [[spoiler: that you must use to destroy the Sa-Matra]], and oddly enough can be found as an exotic ore on certain planets.
* There are five tiers of basic missile weapons in ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}''. Antimatter missiles make up the middle one, more powerful than [[NukeEm nuclear and fusion missiles]] but weaker than the Quantum and Marauder models.
** Similarly, there are normally 6 tiers of starship reactors. Antimatter is the 4th best, better than Fission, Fusion, Cold Fusion, but worst than Zero-Point and Dark Matter energy.
* The old [[VideoGame/StarTrekTextGame EgaTrek]] has a M-AM (matter-antimatter) converter as one of the [[SubsystemDamage systems]] that can be damaged on the USS Enterprise.
* ''VideoGame/AVeryLongRopeToTheTopOfTheSky'': The gun Saecelium Laser's FlavorText is:
--> Fires a condensed anti-matter beam.

* Antimatter is used in explosives in ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'', usually consisting of minuscule amounts of antimatter encased in fullerene molecules -- breaking these up will cause a massive explosion. Most notably, a minor character once smuggled antimatter out of a facility in paper bags and unwittingly almost caused an entire habitat to blow up. Resident MadScientist Kevyn turned his uniform insignia into a pair of antimatter grenades, [[https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-05-31 one of which]] uses some antimatter to penetrate DeflectorShields and the rest to blow up something the size of a tank, [[https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-06-04 the other]] destroyed an enemy base, and though indirectly, brought down ''a spaceship in orbit of the planet''. Antimatter is considered inferior as both a weapon and a fuel; it's fail-unsafe, warheads using it can't regulate their blast power the way an annie-plant[[note]]Neutronium-fueled gravitic-annihilation powerplant[[/note]] can, and neutronium for annie-plants is ''much'' easier to make.
** And the size of the fullerine containment is [[https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2014-02-18 discussed]]; depending on what you're using, the "container" can potentially end up weighing several hundred times more than the "fuel".

* Antimatter in ''Website/OrionsArm'' is generated by massive orbital "farms" and usually used in engines. It's considered the fastest form of propulsion that modosophonts can construct, but pales in comparison to the least of the drives that transapients can build, which also tend to be safer.

* Anti matter can be used magically in ''Literature/ChaosFighters'' and they are coated with magic to prevent reaction with air molecules.

* The Mondays, the evil versions of ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretSaturdays'', supposedly come from an antimatter MirrorUniverse, which somehow has "corrupted" laws of physics, like their version of their airship being darkness powered rather than solar powered. Matter from the two universes violently exploding on contact only occurs when [[spoiler: Argost absorbs the antimatter powers of Zak Monday [[MutuallyExclusiveMagic and the matter powers]] of Zak Saturday, despite Zak's warnings not to do so.]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcFGem3t4Fs He should've listened]]. Otherwise a reaction only occures when antimatter is in proximity with its direct positive matter counterpart, and that only causes [[RealityIsOutToLunch reality to go on a break]] until they're separated.
* ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Gy9ZnStUKs The Specialists]]'', of a series of shorts on MTV's WesternAnimation/LiquidTelevision, met their antimatter counterparts, who were chromatically opposite but otherwise identical. Typically, the short plays loose with the properties of antimatter.
* ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' shows us that Ron, having been turned into antimatter, makes objects around him disappear when he touches them. To say nothing of how he should have exploded when he came into contact with the air...
* The original ''WesternAnimation/SpaceGhost'' cartoons had an episode where a guy was turned into antimatter. Thus, he could not touch anything until he was turned back, lest he explode. Why he didn't explode by simply standing on the floor, as he did throughout the episode, went entirely unexplained.
* At the end of ''WesternAnimation/ExoSquad'', series BigBad Phaeton was preparing to use an antimatter device to destroy the Earth rather than let the Exofleet liberate it (or die himself of Automutation Syndrome).

* ''WesternAnimation/SuperFriends'': In "Journey into Blackness", Earth starts getting sucked into a black hole. Batman attempts to stop it by blasting it with antimatter, but fails as the antimatter simply gets sucked into the black hole without destroying it.

* Antimatter may sound rare and extremely dangerous, but actually it's quite common. For example, beta decay, one of the ways that natural radioactive elements slowly radiate away, always produces antiparticles. Powerful enough gamma radiation i.e. photons may also create positron-electron pairs upon being absorbed. The reason this doesn't cause a catastrophe is that the masses involved are absolutely minuscule. For example, it takes six times ten to the power of twenty six protons to make a kilogram. That's about how many grains of sand are estimated to be in the Sahara Desert.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

-->'''Note:''' Getting one hundred and sixteen grams of antimatter into just ten kilograms of containment takes some real doing. The usual method of trapping anti-hydrogen inside a carbon buckyball will result in a far heavier containment system, since the atomic mass of the buckyball (sixty carbon atoms) is around seven hundred and twenty times that of monatomic anti-hydrogen.\\
\\

* Another issue with storage is that antiprotons have negative charge and hate being close together, so it's difficult to get them into a tight space together. Scientists are working with antihydrogen atoms, which are electrically neutral, but they also don't respond well to the electromagnetic traps they've been working on. The most scientists have been able to pull off is storing 309 antihydrogen atoms together for more than 1000 seconds -- short about a billion trillion of what one would need, give or take. To make solid antimatter that could be more easily stored in greater quantities would likely require doing nuclear fusion with antihydrogen to make other antielements; which has not so far been done beyond antihelium, which still has the same storage problem.

* Another issue with storage is that antiprotons have negative charge and hate being close together, so it's difficult to get them into a tight space together. Scientists are working with antihydrogen atoms, which are electrically neutral, but they also don't respond well to the electromagnetic traps they've been working on. The most scientists have been able to pull off is storing 309 antihydrogen atoms together for more than 1000 seconds -- short about a billion trillion of what one would need, give or take.

ScienceMarchesOn with antimatter as it does with pretty much everything, so you might see some outdated "science" in your stories. For instance, it was once theorised that antimatter ''did'' exist in large quantities somewhere out in the far reaches of space -- it was just undetectable. Modern science considers this unlikely, because it would be difficult for that much antimatter to exist in the universe without coming into contact with matter and violently proving its existence. For much of the 20th century; scientists were befuddled as to why there's so much matter in the universe compared to antimatter when all known processes for creating both created them in equal amounts. Starting in the 1950s; careful measurements showed that some particle decays break the symmetry and favor matter over antimatter, but many details of how that happened in the earlier universe remain unknown. This gives writers a lot of room to work with, and frustrates creators working on the harder sci-fis.

* Antimatter in ''WebOriginal/OrionsArm'' is generated by massive orbital "farms" and usually used in engines. It's considered the fastest form of propulsion that modosophonts can construct, but pales in comparison to the least of the drives that transapients can build, which also tend to be safer.

ScienceMarchesOn with antimatter as it does with pretty much everything, so you might see some outdated "science" in your stories. For instance, it was once theorised that antimatter ''did'' exist in large quantities somewhere out in the far reaches of space -- it was just undetectable. Modern science considers this unlikely, because it would be difficult for that much antimatter to exist in the universe without coming into contact with matter and violently proving its existence. But on the flip side, scientists are befuddled as to why there's so much matter in the universe compared to antimatter when all known processes for creating such massive particles, like the Big Bang, should create matter and antimatter in equal measure. Who knows? We might find a solution to that, too. It just gives the writers a lot of room to work with, and frustrates creators working on the harder sci-fis.

"Little Boy", the nuclear weapon dropped on {{Hiroshima|AsAUnitOfMeasure}} in 1945, was built from ''64 kilograms'' of uranium -- 64,000 times more material than we were just looking at -- and released only 64 terajoules. Or to put it another way (and as noted on KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter), if you wanted to get the same energy as you would from a reaction between matter and antimatter with something of the same mass as the matter and antimatter combined, you would need to accelerate it to about 87% of the speed of light -- about 260,000 km/s.

--->[[CatchPhrase "He's the man who makes the impossible possible."]]

* c[[superscript:2]] = 9 × 10[[superscript:16]] m/s. Converting 1 gram of matter to energy therefore produces 9 × 10[[superscript:13]] kg × m/s.
* 9 × 10[[superscript:13]] N × m is approximately 90 terajoules.

A staple of science fiction and superhero stories, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter anti-matter]] is matter composed of antiparticles. All fiction seems to know ([[ArtisticLicensePhysics or care]]) about antimatter is that ''(a)'' it's [[{{Unobtainium}} really rare]], and ''(b)'' when it comes into contact with "real" matter, it makes a [[StuffBlowingUp big explosion]] that might be {{radioactive|Tropes}} and is big enough to maybe [[EarthShatteringKaboom blow up a planet]] or [[ItRunsOnNonsensoleum power exotic and valuable technology]]. That makes it a pretty useful plot device -- a highly destructive and scarce form of {{Phlebotinum}} that nobody understands but has some basis in RealLife.

* In ''Literature/LunaMarine'' by Creator/IanDouglas, the discoveries of [[AncientAstronauts Ancient Astronaut]] ruins on Mars and the Moon kick off an ArchaeologicalArmsRace between the US and the [[UnitedNationsIsASuperpower UN]]. Both sides are working on antimatter-powered ships (tiny amounts of antimatter are dropped into tanks full of water; the resulting matter/antimatter reaction turns the water into plasma that is then expelled through the engines, allowing the ship to accelerate at 6 gravities). While the US has been manufacturing its antimatter stores the old-fashioned way (i.e. particle accelerators), UN scientists have managed to locate and reactivate an [[{{Precursors}} Ahn]] device that produces a steady stream of antiprotons. They first adapt it for use as a particle beam weapon, which only really works because they're on the Moon (i.e. no air particles to react to antiprotons). UN scientists are still struggling to make the antimatter engine work. If the UN ship is launched ahead of its US counterpart, the war will be pretty much over, as the ship's speed and firepower will be unrivaled in the system, and the antimatter cannon will be able to rain destruction on American cities.
* Kraken in ''LightNovel/UnlimitedFafnir'' has the ability to shoot antimatter projectiles. These clearly don't act like normal antimatter, as they liberate much less energy upon hitting their target than would be expected from their size. In-universe, the reason why they're dangerous is that they annihilate any matter on contact, even the super-tough alloy mithril. Mitsuki gains a weaker version of this power after killing Kraken.

* c = 9 × 10[[superscript:16]] m/s. Converting 1 gram of matter to energy therefore produces 9 × 10[[superscript:13]] kg × m/s.

* An episode of ''Series/TheVisitor'' has a farmer and a group of scientists working on a secret experiment for generating sizable quantities of antimatter. Their main problem appears to be maintaining a perfect vacuum in the containment vessel. In the end, Adam explains that there are other applications of their research that can be used to quickly grow large quantities of food. Basically, they can solve world hunger.

* In Alastair Reynolds's ''Literature/RevelationSpace'' (and its [[TheVerse universe]]), antimatter weapons are small, hard to get, and ''extremely'' destructive; one character has one bomb ''implanted in his eyes'' (the eyes are artificial) and could destroy a kilometre long spacecraft with a thought. Small projectile weapons firing shielded antimatter fragments are also known, but seldom used outside of serious conflicts between very well equipped parties.

* ''Literature/DreadEmpiresFall'' has this as both fuel and warhead. In fact, missiles burn fuel until they reach their target, and whatever's left goes into exploding. It's one of the few justified cases of ArbitraryMaximumRange. It also one of the factors that contributes to the missiles having a very short tactically-viable range, in conjunction with point defense.

* ''Manga/DoubutsuNoKuni'': When Juu return for [[CurbStompBattle his revenge]] against [[HijackedByGanon Giller]], readers are wondering how someone using [[BadWithTheBone swastika-shaped bone spear]] could compete with his newest [[HybridMonster Chimera]] who can spit [[NukeEm nuclear blast]], [[HealingFactor regenerate from said blast]], can [[SensorCharacter detect even bacteria]] and having [[TimeAbyss livespan of a star]] to boot? By giving him an antimatter weapon of course!

:: When Giller ask how he found that many antimatter, he replied that human's technology develop exponentially during war times, making it possible to gather such stellar amount of antimatter.

* Another issue with storage is that antiprotons have negative charge and hate being close together, so it's difficult to get them into a tight space together. Scientists are working with antihydrogen atoms, which are electrically netural, but they also don't respond well to the electromagnetic traps they've been working on. The most scientists have been able to pull off is storing 309 antihydrogen atoms together for more than 1000 seconds -- short about a billion trillion of what one would need, give or take.

"Little Boy", the nuclear weapon dropped on {{Hiroshima|AsAUnitOfMeasure}} in 1945, was built from ''64 kilograms'' of uranium -- 6400 times more material than we were just looking at -- and released only 64 terajoules. Or to put it another way (and as noted on KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter), if you wanted to get the same energy as you would from a reaction between matter and antimatter with something of the same mass as the matter and antimatter combined, you would need to accelerate it to about 87% of the speed of light -- about 260,000 km/s.

* Antimatter may sound rare and extremely dangerous, but actually it's quite common. For example, beta decay, one of the ways that natural radioactive elements slowly radiate away, always produces antiparticles. Powerful enough gamma radiation i.e. photons may also create positron-electron pairs upon being absorbed. The reason this doesn't cause a catastrophe is that the masses involved are absolutely minuscule. For example, it takes six times ten to the power of twenty six protons to make a gram. That's about how many grains of sand are estimated to be in the Sahara Desert.

** The Franchise/{{Justice League|of America}}'s EvilCounterpart, the Crime Syndicate, comes from an antimatter universe. (To travel into a positive universe and back, they must switch the polarities of their particles mid-course.)
** Pre-ComicBook/{{Crisis|on Infinite Earths}}, the antimatter universe Earth was rather the planet Qward, as the Crime Syndicate lived in one of the matter universes. Post Crisis, both the Crime Syndicate Earth and Qward are worlds in the same antimatter universe.
** In the 1986 CrisisCrossover ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'', an antimatter wave erased several universes from existence- without exploding or disintegrating itself in the process. It was brought about by another antimatter Evil Counterpart too.
* The Franchise/MarvelUniverse has the "Negative Zone" dimension, which is made of antimatter (though there seems to be some positive matter in it as well.)
** It's vaguely mentioned that portals to it have to be designed to convert particles to their opposite counterparts for the obvious reasons but it's rarely a plot point. Notably, in the Ultimates continuity, space has an atmosphere but it's acidic.
* ''Franchise/XMen'': Angel's EvilUncle, Burtram Worthington aka the Dazzler, is a GadgeteerGenius that marked his mooks with special particles he can track. He's also capable of remotely transmuting those particles into antimatter to vaporize anyone that betrays him. Besides the fact that enough antimatter to obliterate the mass of person would also obliterate everything around them for miles if not the whole planet, it's safe to say if he wasn't so into the villainy, he could easily [[CutLexLuthorACheck turn a profit]] from ''remotely generating antimatter''.
* The retconned Marvel ScienceHero Blue Marvel is a 50's era "living antimatter generator" which basically makes him a Superman with the ability most forms of energy. He got his powers from a FreakLabAccident studying AnotherDimension where positive and negative matter can coexist without destroying each other he dubbed "The Neutral Zone".