Mythbusters and Eclipse
- Solar
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The Eclipse was utilized for their season 18 "Accidental ammo" episode to determine if a rock that is kicked up by a lawn mower has as much energy as a .357 bullet. The .357 acheived 60 degrees and a 42 gram rock launched from the Eclipse acheived 66 degrees at 800 psi with paper towels as a sabot.
I saw the episode, but was very disappointed by the inaccuracy of the physics they were quoting.
They used the height of the swing as a direct indicator of kinetic energy, but ballistic pendulums measure momentum (if they'd even used the pendulum correctly, which they did not), so the result would have to be converted using the mass of the projectile .
I know the whole thing was supposed to be an eye-candy experiment (they could already have determined the rock's KE trivially, from its known mass and velocity), but that they perpetuated such a wildly inaccurate conclusion because of it annoys me.
They used the height of the swing as a direct indicator of kinetic energy, but ballistic pendulums measure momentum (if they'd even used the pendulum correctly, which they did not), so the result would have to be converted using the mass of the projectile .
I know the whole thing was supposed to be an eye-candy experiment (they could already have determined the rock's KE trivially, from its known mass and velocity), but that they perpetuated such a wildly inaccurate conclusion because of it annoys me.
Does that thing kinda look like a big cat to you?