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
You can have the 2000N of force on the bullet, if you use more gun powder. No matter how you do it, the momentum of the bullet and the earth will be equal and opposite, mv=-MV, M=earth mass is huge, and V is tiny. Both will have some energy imparted to them. Bullet energy is mvv/2=MVv/2, and earth energy is MVV/2, which is much smaller and ignorable.
Latest Answers