Eli5, How does a railgun work?

Question

Eli5, How does a railgun work?

In: 35

Answer 1

Have you ever seen a baseball pitching machine? The kind with the rotating wheels that sling out fastballs at a batting cage? Imagine a bunch of those laid end to end with the baseball passing through each one. Now swap out the rotating wheels for electromagnetism and the baseball for a conductive projectile and that’s basically a railgun (without getting too much in the weeds about the Lorentz force and right hand rules).