After reading the thread pertaining to the Nova documentary on
explosives "Kaboom" and the speed of sound, I thought I'd share with
everyone a video I saw today. Another friend (yes, I do have
friends...believe it or not.), was showing me some video on some artilery
research. A couple that really amazed me was one that used a highly
volatile liquid that was heated up super-fast that caused a 5 pound
"cannon ball" to hit a stationary tank on its side and literally roll the
tank over! I think that cannon ball had just a wee bit of momentum
behind it.
Another thing that was shown was research on rail-guns, which I
also saw on the discovery channel. The one thing I want to know is just
how fast are the projectiles moving? One of the researchers stated that
the projectiles are actually approaching the speed of light! Just how
close are they getting? Does anyone know the masses of the projectiles?
I guess in the movie "Eraser", Swacheranager's arm would have
experienced a bit more kick back than was shown in the movie, but then
again, we're talking about Swachernager. :-)