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Rail Guns Closer to Reality
emtboy9 writes "Yahoo News is reporting that scientists at Sandia National Labs have created a magnetic pulse gun (rail gun) that can accelerate small aluminum plates at 34 kilometers per second, faster than the Earth travels through space.
The accelerated plates strike a target after traveling only five millimeters, or less than a quarter-inch. The impact generates a shock wave -- in some cases, reaching 15 million times atmospheric pressure -- that passes through the target material turning matter into various states almost instantly (solids into liquids, liquids into gas, and even gas into plasma)."
I think the knife has a longer range than this thing.
They should use some of the technology for cold fusion to accelerate small metal plates into things... That would be hella fun!
-Bill
Start a happiness pandemic
Sounds like we have our Quake 4 in real life before it is released...
Plates don't liquify people. People liquify people.
Well, you could maybe launch non-mil payloads into space, or perhaps use the technology in terrestrial transportation... Or make a really bitchin' chicken gun.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
If you can't get out of the way of the guy carrying a gun bigger than my house, I think it's probably best if your slow-ass organs die with you.
How about this: In Soviet Russia the Railgun ... ummmmm ...
No, I can't really see any easy beneficial (which is, I guess, to say "non-military") applications for this tech, unless you can tell me how this could aid in space exploration (a means of launching spacecraft, maybe?) ... or how it might help in the advancement of processing or data storage technology...
Wait! I've got it:
Railgun confirms: Tank crew is dying.
Ahh, that's more like it. Now I can sleep. :-)
A Bunch of Squirrels beneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Z Machine, -- and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness --
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
(Moderators: Yes, this is a bit redundant. But if Edward FitzGerald can get away with publishing five or six different translations of Khayyam's Rubáiyát, surely I should be allowed to post just two!)
Oh - you said RailGun. I guess my brain just saw the additional three letters.
and think of the children for once.
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solids into liquids, liquids into gas, and even gas into plasma
Let me guess - it then turns plasmas into solids.
So the war of the future will be an evere more complex version of Liquid, Gas, Plasma, Solid - far more sophisticated than the three state method of old including Rock and Paper.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This put's the Flux Capacitor to shame. No where did I park that Delorean?
And to think I thought Marx generators only transferred energy from the bourgeoisie to the proletariat...
Well railguns are neat and all, but I'm still not joining the Army until they invent the respawn point.
"Derp de derp."
While it's theoretically possible that a weapon might be derived from this research someday, but for a moment think about what this is really talking about.
It's a machine that can accelerate a tiny disc of metal very quickly, but only for a short distance, and AFAICT, it's all happening down inside of a big machine so about the biggest thing you could kill with it might be a cockroach.
Right now, as far as killing things goes, it's not a weapon -- it's just a $6+ million bug exterminator!
Hmm...bug extermination for only $6 millon or so. Maybe MS should buy a few dozen!
--
The universe is a figment of its own imagination.
The universe is a figment of its own imagination.
"The Constitution guarantees us the right to keep and bear rail guns!!!" Later followed by "Mommy... Johnny liquefied the cat again!"
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
No, Marx energies appear to transfer energy to the proleteriat, but, in fact, they only spread noise among elite intellectuals. Lenin energies then convert the noise into energy useable by the proleteriat and Stalin energies then destroy all other particles in the vicinity.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
Try the new Soylent Green Energy Drink!
"How is it?"
"Well, it varies from person to person."
* Olaserov is in the process of thinking up a signature.
Does the second Amendment protect our right to turn matter into plasma?
... if you're running around being chased by someone with one of these, chanting, "I refuse to be railed! I refuse to be railed!" repeatedly at high speed will cause them to lose their nerve and not be able to hit the broad side of a barn.
At least, it worked that way in Quake II at LAN parties.
Though it sometimes caused the person with the gun to drop out of the game, reboot into Linux, and start denial-of-service attacking the guy who was chanting...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Sorry, couldn't resist. So mod me down.
Every bloody emperor has his hand up history's skirt [Peter Hammill/VdGG]
Anyway, nice one, you should elaborate that into a treatise on marxistic-leninistic high energy physics.
This comment does not exist.
Of course it slows down for leap years.
So we can stop the handwringing over the morality of this "weapon", as to use it as such would require luring the enemy into a chamber the size of a soup can and asking him to hold still while you blast him.
HEAR HEAR! I quite agree with the parent. This should be a discussion about the morality of lureing your enemies into soup can sized implosion chambers and asking him to hold still.
(It doesn't sound cricket, if you ask me...)
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
This is /. were pedantic nerds with nothing better to do hang out, not CNN.
And as one such, I can't help pointing out that "were" should be "where".
There once was a time when Slashdot was a gathering point for people with a technical clue. The editors would put a technical slant on some event or announcement, which would lead the /. masses into making at least semi-intelligent nerdy commentary.
... the editors comment on highly technical news about a high-voltage instrument for physics experiments by misunderstanding it utterly and spouting total nonsense about progress on rail guns, which have absolutely no bearing on the subject matter.
Look what we've descended to now
Notch one up for the meme of Nerds Are Technically Clueless.
(The world already knows nerds can't code anyway, or they'd have put in dup detection long ago. Now they see we can't think either.)
Thank you Slashdot editors. You are a real credit to the technical community.
drinking beer & chasing girls.
Heck, I can throw a rock faster than the Earth travels through space - as long as I'm at the equator, the local time is near midnight, and I'm throwing the same direction as the Earth is traveling. And don't go trying to get relativistic on me.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.