Subject:
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Re: Lego Railguns
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.fun
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Date:
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Sun, 12 Dec 1999 10:31:39 GMT
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Viewed:
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352 times
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But he mentioned nothing about POWERING his - a rubber band does not a railgun make.
Ben Olmstead/BEM wrote:
> "Tom Stangl, VFAQman" wrote:
> >
> > Sorry, but you just built a gun with rails, not a railgun ;-)
> >
> > I remember seeing a REAL railgun at a science competition in DC once - > the boy built it right - electromagnets would accelerate a bolt fast
> > enough (in about a foot) to dent a piece of sheetmetal pretty good.
>
> No, what he built *is* a railgun.
>
> A railgun is just two rails connected to opposite poles of a (usually
> powerful) current source, with a conductive 'bullet' between them.
> Hence the name 'railgun'. (This is something that our Physics II prof
> used a *lot* for examples/problems--even had a military guy come in and
> talk about them (the Navy uses large models on warships).)
>
> Note that a railgun with a decent current source (U.S. wall current
> works, if I recall correctly) can accelerate a bolt to about the same
> velocity as a bullet from a gun, with about a foot of rail.
>
> It *is* possible to build a device which will accelerate an object
> using a series of electromagnets, but this is a very complicated thing--
> it involves quickly reversing the currents on a bunch of electromagnets
> at precisely the right time. Maglev trains use this method to
> accelerate, because it doesn't require that the train touch the track.
> --
> Ben Olmstead/BEM
> <bem@mad.scientist.com>
--
Tom Stangl
***http://www.vfaq.com/
***DSM Visual FAQ home
***http://ba.dsm.org/
***SF Bay Area DSMs
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Lego Railguns
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| (...) No, what he built *is* a railgun. A railgun is just two rails connected to opposite poles of a (usually powerful) current source, with a conductive 'bullet' between them. Hence the name 'railgun'. (This is something that our Physics II prof (...) (25 years ago, 12-Dec-99, to lugnet.general)
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