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
So force isn’t energy. They’re related, but not interchangeable. No, it’s not possible to have 2000N going into the bullet, because only 1000N of force was generated. That 1000N will press out on everything in all directions, but the important one is the direction the bullet travels. It’s also important to note that momentum is more of a factor here, not energy. You are correct, there is energy wasted. Not all the energy will go into the bullet. The recoil will waste some, some (a lot honestly) will become heat, and some will go into the exhaust gases. Some will even go into making the noise of the gun firing.
I’m not sure how much it’d be, but significant losses (more than half) wouldn’t surprise me.
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