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Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 13:00:13 +0100
To: KellySt@aol.com, kgstar@most.fw.hac.com From:
T.L.G.vanderLinden@student.utwente.nl (Timothy van der Linden) Subject:
Re: shielding

>>I don't understand, if the stone can easely go through a few metal walls,
then a few metres of air will have even less effect. 

>Oh the air won't effect the stone, but the stone will definatly effect the
air. Its like a rifel bullet going through a body. If the bullet isn't designed
to deform and slow down (assuming it misses the bones) it will pass in
and out without slowing down much. But it will blast open a wake in soft
tissue that can be as large as a loaf of bread. That wake/skockwave can
blast open an exit hole doizens of times wider than the entry hole. In our
case that blast would blow threw the presurized chamber like a high
temperature explosion, and make a large exit hole. This is a bad thing to
witness at close range. ;)

Hmm, I always thought that "right-through" shotwounds were rather
clean... unless the bullet was made create a lot of damage. 

>I don't know specifically how much blast or heat a stone could release
into the air, or absorb from colisions with the air; but given the high
energies involved, I don't think it would be a minor effect. 

a tube (with the diameter of the stone) of air several meters long, would
have only have a few milli grams of air, that would be accellerated to
0.3c, sure it will give a flash like a small lightning but no more than that,
it would be inside for a few micro seconds. 

However now that I'm rethinking it once more, I realize that the amount of
metal that will be cut from the hull will be of the same amount as the
stone itself, which makes that the velocity decrease of the stone would
become at least 50%
This will render my initial idea useless, unless the stones have a much
bigger weight:surface ratio.

Tim