This may sound dumb to some folks, but lets say I fire a gun. 1000N of force goes into the bullet, and another 1000N of force goes into my body. Even if i strap the gun to the ground, it will just apply 1000N of force to move the earth by a tiny amount. Because of this, does it mean that it isn’t possible to have 2000N of force going to the bullet with the same parameters as before?
In: Physics
No, 50% of the energy is not wasted.
Force does not equal energy. Force **times distance** equals energy. The gun moves a **lot** less than the bullet thus most of the energy goes into the bullet. Note that the distance moved I’m talking about is only the moment while the force is applied. The force only exists while the bullet is in the barrel (a very short time). Once the bullet leaves the barrel, the force is gone.
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