Gauss Rifle - This is Cool !!

The Gauss Rifle:
A Magnetic Linear Accelerator

"This very simple toy uses a magnetic chain reaction to launch a steel marble at a target at high speed. The toy is very simple to build, going together in minutes, and is very simple to understand and explain, and yet fascinating to watch and to use".

Check out these two links, the top one is the full sight the bottom one is the gauss rifle working.

www.scitoys.com...

sci-toys.com...

How it works
When you release the first ball, it is attracted to the first magnet. It hits the magnet with a respectable amount of force, and a kinetic energy we will call "1 unit".

The kinetic energy of the ball is transfered to the magnet, and then to the ball that is touching it on the right, and then to the ball that is touching that one. This transfer of kinetic energy is familiar to billiards players -- when the cue ball hits another ball, the cue ball stops and the other ball speeds off.

The third ball is now moving with a kinetic energy of 1 unit. But it is moving towards the second magnet. It picks up speed as the second magnet pulls it closer. When it hits the second magnet, it is moving nearly twice as fast as the first ball.

The third ball hits the magnet, and the fifth ball starts to move with a kinetic energy of 2 units. It speeds up as it nears the third magnet, and hits with of 3 units of kinetic energy. This causes the seventh ball to speed off towards the last magnet. As it gets drawn to the last magnet, it speeds up to 4 units of kinetic energy.

The kinetic energy is now transfered to the last ball, which speeds off at 4 units, to hit the target.


What i want to know is, are there any limits? I mean if you built one the same at the one above but say 2 miles long how powerful would it be.
Hypothetically, If you could build one which was infinetly long what would happen when the speed that the ball were moving between the magnets neared light speed (assuming the magnets and balls don't shatter), would it blow itself to bits coz if the energy kept building up somthing would HAVE to give.

If you were to say, fire about 100 of those little marbles, wouldn't you be breaking the law of conservation of energy? I mean, the force just continues to build and build. It's like, once you get to 100 marbles, you're looking at something like 50 units of energy, or whatever. Not to mention all of the energy still stored in the magnet, which could crush the gun(assumingly made of metal) like a tin can, right? I just don't know, but that's how it seems to work to me.

Thats pretty cool though. I am guessing that the max amount of force highly depends on the strength of the magnets. Say if the pull of a magnet is 2U and the distance travelled only allows 1U increase in speed. Having the multiple balls and another magnet allows the projectiles to get to 2U speed. Just an idea though. Also, distance from the magnet is also an issue.

Hypothetically, If you could build one which was infinetly long what would happen when the speed that the ball were moving between the magnets neared light speed (assuming the magnets and balls don't shatter), would it blow itself to bits coz if the energy kept building up somthing would HAVE to give.

Perhaps an extension of this hypothesis is applying the same model to space-based propulsion / weaponry.

Thinking about it, if u built a circular track and had a way to "reset" each ball quickly enough back to the magnet it started against would the power not just keep comming - free energy perhaps??

Only as long as you get more power out of the device than putting in to it.

Seems similar to the techonology that is used to propel some Roller Coasters, Batman or Superman I think. The one where you start still and then are slingshotted up a ramp. That doesn't use ballbearings that hit eachother, but uses a series of magnets. They also have ideas to uses magents for high speed teains that can go like mach 5 from new York to London.

the earth's magnetic poles are probably the biggest magnets we have....
if we were to allow this method to be stretched across the ridges along the bottom of say...the atlantic, back and forth so as to setup millions of these pellets to fire off into space..(therefore seriously annoying any aliens on the recieving end)
just a thought

Kind of neat but~

Seems to me there are a couple problems with making "much" of a gauss-gun as described:

weight of shot (balls),

frangible aspects of magnets/shot

friction

gravity

The weight of the shot pretty much determines the power (kinetic impulse) given to the shot considering friction and gravity

How 'tough' are the magnets/shot? With stronger magnets or more magnets then the ability to withstand shock of the incoming (upstrem) shot would be important

At what point does friction, either of the 'rail' (ruler) or air impact the shot enough to cause any additional magnet to have no additional ability to increas the velocity of the shot?

Finally, gravity at some point would render any increase in number, strength or size of magnets non-productive.

Other than these considerations this is a neat concept.

Gauss guns (or "Mass Drivers") can't fire projectiles "just below the speed of light". Accelerating an object the size of a bullet to that velocity (within the scope of the Earth) would require a prohibitively large amount of energy.

A notable exception however, is the nuclear particle accelerator, which can propel objects of extremely low mass (protons, neutrons, etc.) to those velocities. This can be done with reasonable energy, time and distance. MadScientist Network

Our gauss rifle uses 12 magnets rather than the recommended four, with a corresponding increasing in penetrating power. I've documented our experiments in smashing things with it here. The Quicktime movies are particularly fun to watch.Erehwon Notebook

Interesting "concept" art from Planetside:

It is cool. Wanna own one? Go to the Information Unlimited website. I check out their site from time to time. www.amazing1.com

I was blown away by what you can get from them. Alot of stuff that we discuss daily.

Originally posted by greenkoolaid
Seems similar to the techonology that is used to propel some Roller Coasters, Batman or Superman I think. The one where you start still and then are slingshotted up a ramp.

Principle in those is completely same as in electric motor.

Originally posted by Der Kapitan
It is cool. Wanna own one? Go to the Information Unlimited website. I check out their site from time to time. www.amazing1.com

D-amn! what a web site.

Thanks for the URL- I can spend hours looking through this stuff

i saw an article in Popular Mechanics about a possible military project involving the same idea. there would be a long barrel, with incredibly strong electromagnets all along it. there would be a large solid metal slug fitted in a magnetic armature. a capacitor would store up millions of amps, and release them, propelling the armature and slug out of the barrel at...mach 10 i believe. the armature would separate from the slug upon exiting the barrel. the slug would then exit the atmosphere, then re-enter at a speed of about mach 7. when it would hit the target, the impact evergy and shockwave of the slug (solid metal, no explosives or anything) would pretty much level a decent-sized area around the impact point.

pretty cool.

oh and greenkoolaid, i dont think even the maglevs in china/japan can go mach 5. they only go about mach 1 or so max.

Like it's been said a few times before, the strength of the material being used would need to be great enough to withstand impact at higher speeds. The second problem is that as speed and kinetic energy increase, the pull of the magnet will have less and less influence on the ball in relation to its speed. In other words, while the 1st magnet may double speed, the 20th magnet may only increase speed by 0.0002% (with made up figures). Kinetic energy may also be lost in friction as Gadfly already mentioned.

More than likely the ball's speed would 'level off' at some point, but then again I've never built one of these myself so I'm only theorizing.

Originally posted by Loki
If you were to say, fire about 100 of those little marbles, wouldn't you be breaking the law of conservation of energy?

Conservation of energy is never a problem as it only applies to isolated systems of wich we know of only one possibility in nature; the universe....

Stellar

Yer another killing machine..
Thats way cool
Woodsyboy

Yes, it is very interesting; and homemade too . I might have to make myself one of these, thanks for the post.

Originally posted by Kobyoshimaru
This transfer of kinetic energy is familiar to billiards players -- when the cue ball hits another ball, the cue ball stops and the other ball speeds off.

It really depends how hard you hit and where you strike the cue ball. Hitting it low and hard will draw the ball back, hitting it high and hard will make it roll forward, etc.

Sorry, just had to throw that in there...

Originally posted by Kobyoshimaru
Thinking about it, if u built a circular track and had a way to "reset" each ball quickly enough back to the magnet it started against would the power not just keep comming - free energy perhaps??

Read the bottom of the scitoys page.