I’m not a science-y person, but I love sci-fi. In a novel I read near a decade ago (Larry Niven’s Known Space series), he mentions occasionally kinetic weapons. I’ve seen this online as well with tungsten-based projectiles being discussed. So my question is how does mass and velocity affect the amount of damage? If I had a nickel-sized object, how fast would it need to go to cause city-wide devastation (would it be possible or would the damage output be capped based on either size or velocity)? Conversely, If I launched something at the speed of sound, would the damage output be the same if it were different-sized objects?
In: 5
Kinetic energy is mass times velocity squared.
Since energy is conserved the more energy your projectile has the more it takes to stop it. The thing you hit has to absorb all that damage by deforming or getting kinetic energy as well and flying in multiple direction, or by heating up (wich ones of these happen depend on a bunch of complicated phyiscs, but in general the more energy is involved the more severe the results will be)
>If I had a nickel-sized object, how fast would it need to go to cause city-wide devastation (would it be possible or would the damage output be capped based on either size or velocity)?
There is no cap. There is a maximum speed (speed of light) but approaching it your mass will increase so the total energy has no limit. So a penny at relativistic speeds can have the same effect as a nuclear bomb. For example at 99% lightspeed is about 100 kilotons of TNT equivalent (so a very small nuke). But then if you go to 99.9% lightspeed it gets exponentially bigger
>Conversely, If I launched something at the speed of sound, would the damage output be the same if it were different-sized objects?
No heavier means more damage. Throwing a baseball at someone hurts less then a bowling ball hurled at the same speed (wich takes more energy to get that fast, and also to stop it again)
Latest Answers