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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)."

3 of 475 comments (clear)

  1. 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.

  2. 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.
  3. "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