Posted on 05/16/2015 3:52:39 PM PDT by Duke C.
Basic physics states that F+MV² ( force= mass times velocity squared)
Let's say a thug tosses a bowling ball at Amtrak 188, presently moving at 70 MPH.
That would be 15LBS times 88FPS which would equal 1,742,000 foot pounds of energy.
Don't know if this is right, my physics is rusty. Anybody?
Yutes drop cement blocks on trains fairly often. How many trains disintegrate as a result?
Shoot a BB gun at a car and see if it crashes.
Want to derail a train?You would have to attack the tracks.
lol.
The answer is no. If you fire at a train from the inside of a curve you would have a chance but you would need a very large object with lots of force to move a multi-ton train (think tank). News reports talk about something that broke a window.
The train was going twice the speed it was supposed to be traveling. That’s what caused the accident.
First you should review your physics.
That would be entropy.
Why do you want to square v?
A derailer attached to the track can do the job easily.
So what if there were a projectile.
That does not explain why this engineer was going 106 MPH in a 50 MPH
zone.
That would be one Billy Bad Ass that could throw a 15# bowling ball at 88FPS.
A physic was what my Mom gave us when we were constipated.
Wow, a number of issues here. Force of bowling ball has to be subtracted from the mass and momentum of the train... and whatever's left has to be applied against the coefficient of friction connecting the train to the tracks plus the physical blockage of trying to move the weight of the train across the edge of the entire rail... train shocks are going to absorb a lot and make the carriage sway instead of flip sideways... and the distribution of force from the bowling ball is going to have an effective limit depending on what it hits - a reinforced steal frame member versus a window or sheet metal, the latter just making a hole the size of the ball, the former perhaps exceeding the integrity of the bowling ball itself and shattering it... all in all, holding up a thumb and squinting, I'd say... no.
Crazy video. Even at low speed, once a train starts crashing, it keeps crashing till its done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZnVDc3_1kM
Fox had an expert on that described a possible way it could happen, if it startled the engineer, who might have reflexively jerked, and lost control of the speed.
But, I don’t know enough about train to know if his explanation made sense.
Your math is not only rusty it’s wrongly applied. That’s not how you calculate energy.
Never mind any calculation, just know that the the energy transferred to the bowling ball by the train is about 100,000 times greater than the energy transferred to the train by the bowling ball.
In a train vs. bowling ball contest here is the result:
Bowling ball - dust
Train - dent
Pretty sure F = ma
How long for that train to go from 50mph to 106mph?
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