If I’m on top of a moving train, facing forward, and I fire a gun what happens to the bullet?
In: Physics
It shoots forward at its normal speed with respect to you. This means that with respect to ground, it’s speed is that, plus the speed of the train, since it was already going moving at the speed of the train inside your gun.
It moves forwards, and its speed (as measured by a stationary observer) is equal to the muzzle velocity plus the speed of the train.
If the train is going 150 km/h and your gun shoots a bullet at 1000 km/h then the speed of the bullet will be 1150 km/h
Here a [source](https://science.howstuffworks.com/question456.htm) that explains it a bit better.
Hi 🙂
The bullet will have the speed of the train plus the speed of whatever the gun produces firing it.
(EDIT: Opposite to that, Mythbusters fired a projectile from a moving vehicle backward at the same speed, which just dropped to the ground basically)
The bullet will be slowed down by air drag slowly, while the train will keep it’s speed.
If both would move in a straight line without obstacles, the bullet would zoom in-front of the train, get slower, loose height and land on the ground before the train arrives at that point.
All a answers here are absolutely correct. But: if it’s a faaast moving train you have to take into account, that the windforce going down the barrel due the moving train is slowing down the bullet (by a number with a loooot of zeros AFTER the decimal point 🤣😂) But basically the two speeds just add up.
I can’t help but think of this from *Rat Race* (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOT3Sk5XStQ)
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