Nano-gun...

[RocketManJames]

Another one of my stupid questions. Say we had a special gun that fired TINY bullets (~50-100 nm) at extremely high speeds. How dangerous would such a gun be? If you were to shoot someone in the stomach 5 times, would they even feel it? Would they get hurt by this? Would they die?

I really have no clue what the answer is, but this just popped into my head while I was driving. And, if such a gun could actually cause serious damage to someone... wouldn't it be nearly impossible for law enforcement to find evidence, proper cause of death/injury, etc?

-RMJ

[jakethebake]

I'm pretty sure it could kill someone, but i have no idea how big 50-100 nm is.

[junkmail3]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm pretty sure it could kill someone, but i have no idea how big 50-100 nm is.

[/ QUOTE ]

Atoms are something like 10nm in diameter.

[chaas4747]

Stop smoking [censored] P.O.T. while you are driving.

[2planka]

Depends....

What is the mass of the projectile? What is its velocity? What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

[Lazymeatball]

Well, this is just a guess, but I bet if you looked into what kind of force or momentum is neccesary for objects to pierce human flesh you would find that the speed neccesary for these bullets of a very small mass to be succesfull would be impractical/unatainable. That and I don't think the bullets themselves would do much damage, maybe if they were poisoned they would be more effective.

[Chairman Wood]

This happens all the time. Just regular thermal motion. Something similar on only about one order of magnitude more would be just burning someone with a laser.

[YourFoxyGrandma]

A bullet that small would have to be travelling really fuc[/b]king fast to actually puncture your skin because of its supposed small mass. Assuming that it could puncture your skin, I'm pretty sure that the wound created by a 50-100 nm bullet would be too small to actually do any damage; your body would heal itself before any major bleeding occured.

[2planka]

... unless the projectile was of sufficient mass to produce hydro-shock. Sort of like a pebble against the windshield.

[jakethebake]

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A bullet that small would have to be travelling really fuc[/b]king fast to actually puncture your skin because of its supposed small mass.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why? Won't something tiny puncture more easily?

[Shajen]

[ QUOTE ]
Depends....

What is the mass of the projectile? What is its velocity? What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

[/ QUOTE ]

African or European?

[Eurotrash]

I think atoms are more like 0.1 nm in diameter

[B00T]

I think we need a rocket scientist to step in and answer this question.

[RocketManJames]

[ QUOTE ]
I think atoms are more like 0.1 nm in diameter

[/ QUOTE ]

I believe this is correct... which is why there exists a unit of measure called an Angstrom. I think the purpose of it has to do with atoms being about that size.

And regarding the high speed nano-gun... I am talking about extremely high speed... say one tenth to one quarter the speed of light.

-RMJ

[jakethebake]

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And regarding the high speed nano-gun... I am talking about extremely high speed... say one tenth to one quarter the speed of light. -RMJ

[/ QUOTE ]

Well certainly. Any fool would know it wouldn't work at 1/20th the speed of light. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[Eurotrash]

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Angstrom

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, 10^-10 meters

[2planka]

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Quote:
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Depends....

What is the mass of the projectile? What is its velocity? What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?


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African or European?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't knoooooooooowwwwwwww

[J.A.Sucker]

The nano gun, I'm not sure how much damage it would do. I suspect it could do quite a bit of local damage, but it wouldn't likely kill you, though it probably would go completly through you. Let's suppose you had a 100 nm ball of lead, and it was going the speed of light. How much energy would this transfer to you?

E = 1/2 mv^2. v = 3*10^8 m/s;
m = 5.2*10^-16 cm^3 * 11.4 g/cm^3 / 1000 g/ kg = 5.7*10^-18 kg
Thus, the total kinetic energy would be:

E = .5 * 5.7^-18 * (3*10^8)^2 = 0.25 W

Now, a quarter of a watt doesn't sound like a lot, but I suspect that because of the size, this may not be the right way to think about it. For example, there are two kinds of lasers that I work with: continuous wave and pulsed. Photons have no actual mass, but have momentum, so they can do damage. A continuous wave laser (CW) operates with the light beam coming out the end of the laser in a steady stream. Thus, the average power of the laser is the same as the peak power. The CW lasers typically need on the order of a watt to burn you, and it hurts. A 10W laser will burn through an aluminum plate. People use 100 W lasers for welding.

The pulsed laser is a little different, and it bursts short pulses of light in succession. The average power is much lower than the instantaneous power, since all of the photons will come in a huge burst. The instaneous power is what really counts, and they are much more dangerous. Depending on how often the bursts come, you can be burned by much less power than a watt.

I really think this burst situaiton is analogous to your nano bullet. The burst that it hits you is incredibly short, since it's going very fast. Think about particle accelerators - there's tons of energy there, and they're accelerating much, much smaller things than this bullet.

I need to think about this more, and I'll make another post later. I susupect that one of two effects would occur: either the bullet would just go right through you and you wouldn't notice it, or it would totally make you implode/explode.

[TimM]

http://www.biology.arizona.edu/cell_bio/tutorials/cells/graphics/size_comp.gif

I'm thinking it could pass right through our bodies and not do much damage.

[TimM]

[ QUOTE ]
E = .5 * 5.7^-18 * (3*10^8)^2 = 0.25 W

[/ QUOTE ]

Watts are not a unit of energy.

[Eurotrash]

[ QUOTE ]
Watts are not a unit of energy.

[/ QUOTE ]


this is true.

[jakethebake]

Who the hell are you people and why aren't you figuring out how to get us off this rock before the sun explodes in a few billion years instead of posting here about this inane crap?

[ QUOTE ]
The nano gun, I'm not sure how much damage it would do. I suspect it could do quite a bit of local damage, but it wouldn't likely kill you, though it probably would go completly through you. Let's suppose you had a 100 nm ball of lead, and it was going the speed of light. How much energy would this transfer to you?

E = 1/2 mv^2. v = 3*10^8 m/s;
m = 5.2*10^-16 cm^3 * 11.4 g/cm^3 / 1000 g/ kg = 5.7*10^-18 kg
Thus, the total kinetic energy would be:

E = .5 * 5.7^-18 * (3*10^8)^2 = 0.25 W

Now, a quarter of a watt doesn't sound like a lot, but I suspect that because of the size, this may not be the right way to think about it. For example, there are two kinds of lasers that I work with: continuous wave and pulsed. Photons have no actual mass, but have momentum, so they can do damage. A continuous wave laser (CW) operates with the light beam coming out the end of the laser in a steady stream. Thus, the average power of the laser is the same as the peak power. The CW lasers typically need on the order of a watt to burn you, and it hurts. A 10W laser will burn through an aluminum plate. People use 100 W lasers for welding.

The pulsed laser is a little different, and it bursts short pulses of light in succession. The average power is much lower than the instantaneous power, since all of the photons will come in a huge burst. The instaneous power is what really counts, and they are much more dangerous. Depending on how often the bursts come, you can be burned by much less power than a watt.

I really think this burst situaiton is analogous to your nano bullet. The burst that it hits you is incredibly short, since it's going very fast. Think about particle accelerators - there's tons of energy there, and they're accelerating much, much smaller things than this bullet.

I need to think about this more, and I'll make another post later. I susupect that one of two effects would occur: either the bullet would just go right through you and you wouldn't notice it, or it would totally make you implode/explode.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
E = .5 * 5.7^-18 * (3*10^8)^2 = 0.25 W

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Watts are not a unit of energy.

[/ QUOTE ]

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
E = .5 * 5.7^-18 * (3*10^8)^2 = 0.25 W

[/ QUOTE ]

Watts are not a unit of energy.

[/ QUOTE ]
http://0wn3d.dk/owned/potatowned.gif

[jakethebake]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
E = .5 * 5.7^-18 * (3*10^8)^2 = 0.25 W

[/ QUOTE ]

Watts are not a unit of energy.

[/ QUOTE ]
http://0wn3d.dk/owned/potatowned.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

A freaking rocket scientist and this is what you come up with to add to this conversation?

[Eurotrash]

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http://0wn3d.dk/owned/potatowned.gif

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vn /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

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A freaking rocket scientist and this is what you come up with to add to this conversation?

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm sorry. The project I'm on right now is killing me. I can actually feel the intelligence sapping out of me. Luckily, my next project is for the space shuttle - it better be good.

Oh, and yadda yadda particles... nano... small... very high velocities... mass... yadda yadda soft tissues yadda impulse... quantum... yadda yadda relativity... that's all I got.

[J.A.Sucker]

OK, I'm a moron. The E I calculated is in Joules, not watts. In other words, it's watts/seconds. That's why you have to take into account how much time it intereacts with you.

Of course, this is using a classical mechanics approach, and that's not right, either.

The reason why is that as things go super fast, they have momentum because their mass increases dramatically (why light can burn you even though photons have no mass). I don't have time to do the relativity now, but later I'll get around to it.

[diddle]

The answer:

what you are describing is basically radiation, and no, 5 nano bullets would not hurt someone. Having skin would be an effective defense against this gun.

[jakethebake]

[ QUOTE ]
Of course, this is using a classical mechanics approach...

[/ QUOTE ]

Pah. Any fool knows you should have used the Popular Mechanics approach.

[jakethebake]

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Oh, and yadda yadda particles... nano... small... very high velocities... mass... yadda yadda soft tissues yadda impulse... quantum... yadda yadda relativity... that's all I got.

[/ QUOTE ]

Much better. I'm sure the astronauts will feel much safer now.

[Eurotrash]

[ QUOTE ]
In other words, it's watts/seconds.

[/ QUOTE ]


(watts * seconds)

?

[TimM]

For comparison, a baseball at 60 mph

E = 1/2 * 0.14kg * (27 m/s)^2 = 51 J

Almost all of the energy of the baseball will be transferred to your body, since it will be stopped.

For the 100nm lead ball, only the difference between the kinetic energy it has when it enters vs what it has when it leaves will be transfered.

[Jingleheimer]

[ QUOTE ]
Let's suppose you had a 100 nm ball of lead, and it was going the speed of light. How much energy would this transfer to you?

E = 1/2 mv^2. v = 3*10^8 m/s;


[/ QUOTE ]

The relativity part is crucial- E=1/2 gamma m v^2

gamma = sqrt(1/(1-(v/c)^2))

It would take an infinite amt of energy to get it going that fast. This is problematic.

J