Guys can be like little kids when they get a new car or truck, especially when the vehicle has a noticeable pickup from zero. Nothing like that feel of acceleration, that artificial gravity that one perceives as going backward while going forward. It turns highways into roller coasters when there’s little chance of a speeding violation.
So, when I recently bought a Dodge Ram Rebel, I admit it: I had to accelerate on an uphill onramp to an empty highway to get to the designated 70 mph limit. Wow! That was a few seconds of fun, and lots cheaper than a trip to an amusement park like Disney World. Then I realized that I know relatively nothing about acceleration beyond the experience of being in a commercial jet running the runway toward takeoff or being on one of those rapidly accelerating park rides at Disney. Imagine the difference in acceleration between what we ride and a bullet.
As anyone who’s been in a car, train, or plane knows, once the vehicle gets to cruising speed, no matter what that speed is, the sense of movement, beyond the visual one, ceases. We can put our drinks down on the tray when we fly 500 mph without worrying that they will tumble into our laps. We experience additional G-force on takeoff, but nothing beyond sitting in a living room chair during flight.
Now imagine riding on a bullet by comparison. It accelerates very rapidly, and it decelerates very rapidly, especially when it encounters a target. Your analog speedometer won’t record such acceleration or deceleration (really, they are both the same) very accurately. Enter people who study weaponry, such as the scientists at the National Nuclear Security Administration laboratories, the people who study shock-physics. For years they were limited to gathering data on velocity at about a dozen points on a moving surface, but now they are able to get almost ten times the data from a multiplexed photonic Doppler velocimeter.*
So, for what kinds of acceleration do scientists need such precise measuring? Something faster than my Dodge Ram Rebel or an even faster Porsche? Try acceleration to kilometer-per-second velocities in less than a billionth of a second. What a ride! Of course, we’re talking weapons, so, I wouldn’t want to be on the stopping end of such an object’s brief travel.
What’s the point? Well, acceleration is a thrill when it is reasonable. But we fool ourselves into thinking that we have no personal limits on acceleration, that, for example, we could get into a spaceship and go from whatever to the speed of light as we see spaceships do in science fiction movies. Only photons go the speed of light. Want to go that fast (186,000 miles per second)? Turn yourself into a photon, and in the process, turn your whole spaceship into photons. We have limits. In fact, all of us would get smashed during accelerations of a mere 15 Gs.** As the Eagles have lectured us in song: Life in the fast lane isn’t the ideal that popular culture would have us believe. Yet, we crave that acceleration, especially in youth.
The apparent plodding of daily living just doesn’t have the appeal that rapid-acceleration-living has until the accelerating individual runs up against human limitations or encounters some target. And yet, the experience of accelerating until one decelerates rapidly is the nature of many who enter into addictions or who take unnecessary risks.
All of us have limits that we learn as we go. We accelerate until we reach cruising speed—which, by the way, is the apparent goal of accelerating—or we encounter some obstacle, such as those biological or mental limits. There is no infinite acceleration, but for many that’s a hard lesson to learn in youth or in the beginning stages of addiction.
Cruising seems to be a boring state, so addicts of any kind seek further acceleration. But all of us have those human limits, those targets at the end of the journey that can make stopping a rather abrupt and unpleasant experience. Riding a bullet that accelerates to a kilometer per second in a billionth of a second might seem to be fun, but that same bullet also decelerates to zero in a split second. And traveling that fast very likely makes avoiding an obstacle impossible.
*Heller, Arnie. Ten times more data for shock-physics experiments. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. PDF Online at: https://str.llnl.gov/OctNov12/pdfs/10.12.6.pdf
**One G is normal Earth gravity. The fastest roller coaster ride, the Tower of Terror at Gold Reef City park in Johannesburg, Guateng, South Africa, doesn’t exceed 6.3 G.
So, when I recently bought a Dodge Ram Rebel, I admit it: I had to accelerate on an uphill onramp to an empty highway to get to the designated 70 mph limit. Wow! That was a few seconds of fun, and lots cheaper than a trip to an amusement park like Disney World. Then I realized that I know relatively nothing about acceleration beyond the experience of being in a commercial jet running the runway toward takeoff or being on one of those rapidly accelerating park rides at Disney. Imagine the difference in acceleration between what we ride and a bullet.
As anyone who’s been in a car, train, or plane knows, once the vehicle gets to cruising speed, no matter what that speed is, the sense of movement, beyond the visual one, ceases. We can put our drinks down on the tray when we fly 500 mph without worrying that they will tumble into our laps. We experience additional G-force on takeoff, but nothing beyond sitting in a living room chair during flight.
Now imagine riding on a bullet by comparison. It accelerates very rapidly, and it decelerates very rapidly, especially when it encounters a target. Your analog speedometer won’t record such acceleration or deceleration (really, they are both the same) very accurately. Enter people who study weaponry, such as the scientists at the National Nuclear Security Administration laboratories, the people who study shock-physics. For years they were limited to gathering data on velocity at about a dozen points on a moving surface, but now they are able to get almost ten times the data from a multiplexed photonic Doppler velocimeter.*
So, for what kinds of acceleration do scientists need such precise measuring? Something faster than my Dodge Ram Rebel or an even faster Porsche? Try acceleration to kilometer-per-second velocities in less than a billionth of a second. What a ride! Of course, we’re talking weapons, so, I wouldn’t want to be on the stopping end of such an object’s brief travel.
What’s the point? Well, acceleration is a thrill when it is reasonable. But we fool ourselves into thinking that we have no personal limits on acceleration, that, for example, we could get into a spaceship and go from whatever to the speed of light as we see spaceships do in science fiction movies. Only photons go the speed of light. Want to go that fast (186,000 miles per second)? Turn yourself into a photon, and in the process, turn your whole spaceship into photons. We have limits. In fact, all of us would get smashed during accelerations of a mere 15 Gs.** As the Eagles have lectured us in song: Life in the fast lane isn’t the ideal that popular culture would have us believe. Yet, we crave that acceleration, especially in youth.
The apparent plodding of daily living just doesn’t have the appeal that rapid-acceleration-living has until the accelerating individual runs up against human limitations or encounters some target. And yet, the experience of accelerating until one decelerates rapidly is the nature of many who enter into addictions or who take unnecessary risks.
All of us have limits that we learn as we go. We accelerate until we reach cruising speed—which, by the way, is the apparent goal of accelerating—or we encounter some obstacle, such as those biological or mental limits. There is no infinite acceleration, but for many that’s a hard lesson to learn in youth or in the beginning stages of addiction.
Cruising seems to be a boring state, so addicts of any kind seek further acceleration. But all of us have those human limits, those targets at the end of the journey that can make stopping a rather abrupt and unpleasant experience. Riding a bullet that accelerates to a kilometer per second in a billionth of a second might seem to be fun, but that same bullet also decelerates to zero in a split second. And traveling that fast very likely makes avoiding an obstacle impossible.
*Heller, Arnie. Ten times more data for shock-physics experiments. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. PDF Online at: https://str.llnl.gov/OctNov12/pdfs/10.12.6.pdf
**One G is normal Earth gravity. The fastest roller coaster ride, the Tower of Terror at Gold Reef City park in Johannesburg, Guateng, South Africa, doesn’t exceed 6.3 G.
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