| From: | Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox@***.NEU.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: railgun? |
| Date: | Sun, 10 Apr 1994 20:52:11 -0400 |
<mcormick@*****.COLOSTATE.EDU> writes:
Matthew> Speaking of railguns, I have an additional question about them.
Matthew> Do they incur the same recoil that standard chemically propelled
Matthew> firearms do?
We have Sir Isaac Newton to thank for the answer to this one: for every
force there is an equivalent counterforce in the opposite direction. To
accelerate a projectile requires the application of a force in one
direction. Newton's third law states that there must be a force of
equivalent magnitude but opposite direction. It doesn't matter how the
force is applied, the counterforce /must/ be there.
The difference between a railgun and a chemical propellant is that the
chemical propellant exerts maximum force at the initial stage of
acceleration whereas the force applied by a railgun (or coilgun, much more
efficient than a railgun) is steady and constant. It's much like launching
a rocket at 15 gravities acceleration for one minute followed by coasting
versus a 1g acceleration for 15 minutes (as a guestimate; these numbers do
not add up). The same total force is applied, with the same final velocity,
but the magnitude of the forces involved is literally orders of magnitude
different.
--Rat, speaking as a (former) engineering student and son of a physics
teacher :).
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