Scientists who recently discovered that small particles can theoretically collide and create a “quarksplosion” eight times more powerful than the nuclear fusion events that occur in hydrogen bombs told Live Science they considered not publishing the discovery.
“If I thought for a microsecond that this had any military applications, I would not have published it,” said Marek Karliner, a particle physicist at Tel Aviv University in Israel who co-authored the paper with Jonathan L. Rosner, from the University of Chicago. The two published their findings this week in the journal Nature.
“I must admit that when I first realized that such a reaction was possible, I was scared,” Karliner noted. “But, luckily, it is a one-trick pony.”
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