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Rail Guns Closer to Reality

Posted by samzenpus on from the fastest-gun-in-the-west dept.

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)."

9 of 475 comments (clear)

  1. faster, how? by Speare · · Score: 3, Insightful
    faster than the Earth travels through space

    Faster, measured against what frame of reference? A marker on the equator versus the center of mass? As seen from the moon? Sol? Alpha Proxima? Vega? The center of Andromeda's galactic core?

    --
    [ .sig file not found ]
  2. Re:Just because we can do a thing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful
    RTFA. It's only 6 paragraphs. That's not too taxing, is it? Or do you prefer to post a dumb question and end up looking like an idiot in the hope that maybe you'll get an "insightful" mod and maybe even a first post?

    Second paragraph:

    Housed at Sandia National Laboratories, the Z machine attracted a lot of attention eight years ago when its energy output more than quadrupled - raising hopes that the reactions in the Z could provide a new source of clean, abundant power. To help further progress towards this end, the machine is getting a $61.7 million upgrade, officials announced recently.

  3. Did you not do basic physics at school? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "a magnetic pulse gun (rail gun) that can accelerate small aluminum plates at 34 kilometers per second"

    We were taught this at the age of 14 - what were you doing?

    Acceleration is measured in distance per second per second. 34 km/s is a velocity. So did you mean it accelerates it to 34 km/s? Or did you actually mean it accelerates at 34 km/s/s? This is /. were pedantic nerds with nothing better to do hang out, not CNN.

    1. Re:Did you not do basic physics at school? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      34 km/s is a speed, not a velocity. Velocity is a vector and needs a direction component as well as a magnitude. What where you doing at 14?

  4. Tighten your tinfoil hat by StarCharter · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just because it's called a "railgun" doesn't mean it has military uses. The power supplies and support equipment necessary to power the Z-machine take up several rooms. It's far easier to kill with existing weapons design that it is to reduce the requirements for imparting vast amounts of energy to low mass objects. The chance to study high energy transformations in other-than-nuclear reactions open several potential basic science appliations. The article clearly cites some potential applications that aren't military.

  5. Re:How about a love gun by Adrilla · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Call me crazy, but I'd rather make a friend than kill an enemy.

    Unfortunately, not every enemy feels the same way.

    --

    "Plans are for fools! Oglethorpe, the plutonian (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
  6. Re:How about a love gun by Repton · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is nothing to do with rail guns. It's just a silly inflamatory headline (or maybe railguns are cool 'cause they're in Quake).

    This is all about generating massive shockwaves to examine the properties of matter in extreme conditions (without having to heat it up to enormous temperatures).

    --
    Repton.
    They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
  7. "Small aluminum plates" is highly misleading by Goldenhawk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The "small aluminum plates" are not just small... they're TINY. Others have already noted that "rail gun" is a big misstatement; the discs they're talking about here are merely 850 MICRONS thick. Let's get this thing in perspective, shall we? I know that "rail gun" makes many geeks twitch uncontrollably, but come on now, that's just karma whoring.

    Oh, and to link to a two-year-old image... with a caption of "have created" that implies it's brand new... PLEASE.

    Once again, the question must be asked: where's the moderation system for STORIES?

    --
    --Brandon / Split Infinity Music

  8. Re:Draft dodger! by Tumbleweed · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm still not joining the Army until they invent the respawn point.

    Well...it's not so much the _point_ that's the hard part, but more the respawning mechanism itself.