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?
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The amount of *energy carried by a moving object* is equal to (mv^2)/2. (m is mass, v is velocity) 2x mass is 2x energy, 2x velocity is 4x energy.
The *force created on impact* is mv/t. (t is time during which the impact occurs and velocity is being changed) 2x mass is 2x force, 2x velocity is 2x force, 2x time is 0.5x force.
There was a video made by Veritasium on youtube, and he explains the kinetic projectile idea quite well.
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