The Russians are claiming to have made a weapon breakthrough – "not nuclear but atomic".
— Richard Geldreich (@richgel999) December 15, 2024
"A Coulomb explosion happens when a metal warhead, like tungsten, hits a target at hypersonic speeds (Mach 10, ~3 km/s). The sudden stop causes the free electrons in the metal to keep moving… pic.twitter.com/kyCbfKFQDY
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It’s a game-changer, for sure.
And the West CANNOT stop it. Patriot missiles are useless.
Zeus would have been jealous that mere mortals have achieved this.
Basic physics. Double the mass of a projectile and you double the energy. Double it’s velocity and you quadruple the energy.
One half (Mass times velocity SQUARED). Kinetic energy. Hit anything hard enough and you get sparks…
Not buying it. First of all he’s ignoring quantum mechanics. And 3km/sec is nothing compared to the velocity of an electron (around 2200 km/sec). Electrons have almost no inertia and aren’t going to be affected by the additional 3km/sec. Besides, bullets can travel at around mach 3 and you’re not having mini-atomic explosions from bullet impacts.
Any energy released is purely kinetic, not atomic.
also, it would be kind of hard to find a target that can slow a tungsten rod doing mach 10 to 0 in the time required to throw electrons out of orbit.