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Investigating Angular Velocity

Posted by michael on from the young's-modulus dept.

mbreitba writes "Sam Barros is at it again, Some may know him for his Railgun research, and some may know him for his homemade cannons. But now he's found a use for all those old CD's you don't need anymore. Personally, I couldn't think of a better use for them."

3 of 271 comments (clear)

  1. Freeze the CD... by Max+Romantschuk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    From the site:

    A standard compact disk has a diameter of 12cm. If this disk is to spin at 35000RPM, the peripheral velocity at the edges of the disk (.377m circumference x 583.3 turns per second) will near 220m/s, or 722fps, or 792km/h or 492miles per hour. That is one fast CD-Rom!

    At those speeds the CD is storing over 150joules of energy.

    I wonder if Freezing the CD would make for even more spectacular explosions... after all the speed and energy stored in the CD is really ridiculous.

    Freezing usually makes most things more fragile, right?

    --
    .: Max Romantschuk :: http://max.romantschuk.fi/
  2. Re:they've been lying to us by inaeldi · · Score: 4, Insightful
    why not spin the laser in the opposite direction the cd is spinning in

    Too expensive, and for what? Is a CD burned in 3 minutes not fast enough for you? Would you be willing to pay 4x as much to burn a CD in only 1.5 minutes?

  3. This picture is priceless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This picture is great. The guy is sitting on the floor looking at a 35000 RPM CD which is most certainly going to explode, and wearing nothing but a pair of (what looks to be) sunglasses! He looks like a little kid whose found his first book of matches and is mesmerized by fire! I can't view the video (./'d) so I can't comment of his actual procedure, but from the looks of things he could have been in for a world of hurt. At 35000 RPM, that plastic might as well be concrete, or glass.