On Jan 22, 12:46=A0pm, Luke Campbell <lwc...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On Jan 22, 9:21 am, sie...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
>
> > Would a small solid object (such as a bullet
> > or a billiard ball) moving at 99.999% of c tend to simply punch
> > through other solid objects (such as a human or a brick wall) because
> > there is no time for chemical bonds to spread the impact energy? Or
> > would it liberate a significant amount of its KE on impact? Would
> > impact result in forcing some nuclei so close together that fission
> > and/or fusion reactions are likely? Would this be the ultimate needle
> > gun, or the ultimate "explodes on contact" effect? =A0What if the
object=
> > struck is more sizable, such as an asteroid or planet.
>
> The energies per particle are well above the energies of the chemical
> bonds holding the object together (and those holding the "target"
> object together). =A0As soon as "contact" occurs between the two
> objects, the electrostatic electron-electron and electron-nuclei
> forces will jostle the electrons enough that they are excited out of
> chemical bonding states and into high energy so-called conduction
> states, turning the impactor into a very hot plasma, and as well as
> whatever part of the target the impactor is traveling through. =A0The
> particles in the impactor still have so much momentum and energy that
> they continue to punch through the target, even though they are now a
> spray of penetrating ionizing radiation rather than a solid object.
> They will be slowed down somewhat as the highly charged particles
> continue to lose energy by exciting electrons in the target, but this
> effect will be minor for the nuclei at the speeds you mention.
> Instead, the dominant method of stopping the nuclei of the impactor
> will be direct collisions with nuclei of the target. =A0This will result
> in a spray of radiation from the debris and nuclear fragments, which
> continue to heat up the target by producing electronic excitations
> while also occasionally slamming into another nucleus, causing further
> fragmentation. =A0This cascade of radiation producing collisions
> continues until the speed of the nuclear fragments slows down enough
> that electronic losses are the dominant energy loss mechanism, at
> which point the nuclear fragments dump the rest of their energy into
> the electrons and come to a stop. =A0Meanwhile, the gamma rays and muons
> produced by these collisions will penetrate deeply and, depending on
> the target's thickness, may largely exit the target altogether, and
> the neutrinos produced will escape the target altogether.
>
> At high energies like you specified, a nucleus or nuclear fragment
> (including pions and kaons) will travel roughly a meter before
> slamming into another target nucleus. =A0As a result, you will get a
> narrow cone of radiation extending several meters to several tens of
> meters into the target. =A0The heat dumped into the target raises the
> temperature in that narrow cone to well above the temperatures in the
> center of a detonating nuclear explosive or the core of a sun, with
> the temperature being hottest near the end of the cone. =A0The matter in
> the cone immediately begins shedding heat via the radiation of x-rays,
> which heats the surrounding matter until it, too, begins to radiate.
> This diffusion of heat by radiation is at first much faster than the
> matter itself can move, so you get a radiative front expanding from
> the cone, va****izing everything it p***** through. =A0Eventually, the
> fireball thus produced cools sufficiently that the transfer of heat
> via radiation is slowed, and the super-heated matter has time to
> expand. =A0The expanding fireball produces a shock wave. =A0The net
result=
> is somewhat similar to a nuclear blast, with a pulse of scorching heat
> and blazing light from the incandescent fireball and a shock that
> smashes buildings and blows people and debris about. =A0If the entire
> energy of the impactor is absorbed in the target, you will get a yield
> of roughly 5,000 megatons per kilogram of impactor at the speed of
> 99.999% c that you mentioned. =A0Even an impact with a thin object (say
> a human) that does not fully stop the impactor will have a yield
> comparable to or in excess of that of a large nuclear explosive.
>
> Luke
Thank you. i had rather suspected that a violent collision would
result, but had not done the analysis in through terms. (Of course
this makes the original story quite impossible, as none of the
observers would have survived).
If such fields were commonly available, they make weapons with little
or no effective defense.
-DES
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