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Centrifugal Gun
A centrifugal gun is a type of rapid-fire projectile accelerator, like a machine gun but operating on a different principle. Centrifugal guns use a rapidly rotating disc to impart energy to the projectiles, replacing gunpowder with kinetic energy. A steam-powered centrifugal gun built by Charles Dickinson of Boston was tested during the American Civil War. This gun was popularly but incorrectly attributed to pro-Southern Maryland millionaire and inventor Ross Winans. Another hand-cranked centrifugal gun that fired musket balls was designed by Robert McCarty during the same period. Despite repeated tests, including one in the presence of Abraham Lincoln, McCarty's gun never saw service. Dahlgren however took the idea seriously, and after testing McCarty's prototype, he built a steam-powered 12 pounder which could fire 15 rounds in 16 seconds and had a range of a mile. It was extremely inaccurate however. As historian Robert V. Bruce notes: "the sole casualty of centrifugal gunfire d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Machine Gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) are typically designed more for firing short bursts rather than continuous firepower, and are not considered true machine guns. As a class of military kinetic projectile weapon, machine guns are designed to be mainly used as infantry support weapons and generally used when attached to a bipod or tripod, a fixed mount or a heavy weapons platform for stability against recoils. Many machine guns also use belt feeding and open bolt operation, features not normally found on other infantry firearms. Machine guns can be further categorized as light machine guns, medium machine guns, heavy machine guns, general purpose machine guns and squad automatic weapons. Similar automatic firearms of caliber or more are classified as autocannons, rat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Andrews Millikan
Robert Andrews Millikan (March 22, 1868 – December 19, 1953) was an American experimental physicist honored with the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1923 for the measurement of the elementary electric charge and for his work on the photoelectric effect. Millikan graduated from Oberlin College in 1891 and obtained his doctorate at Columbia University in 1895. In 1896 he became an assistant at the University of Chicago, where he became a full professor in 1910. In 1909 Millikan began a series of experiments to determine the electric charge carried by a single electron. He began by measuring the course of charged water droplets in an electric field. The results suggested that the charge on the droplets is a multiple of the elementary electric charge, but the experiment was not accurate enough to be convincing. He obtained more precise results in 1910 with his famous oil-drop experiment in which he replaced water (which tended to evaporate too quickly) with oil. In 1914 Millikan took ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pitching Machine
A pitching machine is a machine that automatically pitches a baseball to a batter at different speeds and styles. Most machines are hand-fed, but there are some that automatically feed. There are multiple types of pitching machines; softball, baseball, youth, adult, and a combination of both softball and baseball. History In 1897, mathematics instructor Charles Hinton designed a gunpowder-powered baseball pitching machine for the Princeton University baseball team's batting practice. According to one source it caused several injuries, and may have been in part responsible for Hinton's dismissal from Princeton that year. However, the machine was versatile: it was capable of throwing variable speeds with an adjustable breech size and firing curve balls by the use of two rubber-coated steel fingers at the muzzle of the pitcher. Hinton successfully introduced the machine to the University of Minnesota where he worked as an assistant professor until 1900. The arm-type pitching machine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gorgas Machine Gun
The Gorgas machine gun (or sometimes just a Gorgas gun) was a manually cranked prototype machine gun, the creation of Confederate States General Josiah Gorgas. It had a single smooth-bore barrel. The barrel was fed from a revolver-like ring, but with an axis of rotation perpendicular to the bore, rather than the usual revolver configuration with parallel axes. The cylinder housed 18 copper-lined chambers that were muzzle loaded from the outer side of the ring. The interior side of the multiple-chamber ring was lined with the corresponding 18 percussion cap nipples. The ring was rotated by a hand lever. The gun had a cast iron receiver. The sole exemplar built was not used in combat, not having been sufficiently perfected. See also *Agar gun *Centrifugal gun * Confederate Revolving Cannon *Gatling gun *Puckle gun *Revolver cannon A revolver cannon is a type of autocannon, commonly used as an aircraft gun. It uses a cylinder with multiple chambers, like those of a revolver ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gatling Gun
The Gatling gun is a rapid-firing multiple-barrel firearm invented in 1861 by Richard Jordan Gatling. It is an early machine gun and a forerunner of the modern electric motor-driven rotary cannon. The Gatling gun's operation centered on a cyclic multi-barrel design which facilitated cooling and synchronized the firing-reloading sequence. As the handwheel is cranked, the barrels rotate and each barrel sequentially loads a single cartridge from a top-mounted magazine, fires off the shot when it reaches a set position (usually at 4 o'clock), then ejects the spent casing out of the left side at the bottom, after which the barrel is empty and allowed to cool until rotated back to the top position and gravity-fed another new round. This configuration eliminated the need for a single reciprocating bolt design and allowed higher rates of fire to be achieved without the barrels overheating quickly. One of the best-known early rapid-fire firearms, the Gatling gun saw occasional use ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fokker-Leimberger
The Fokker-Leimberger was an externally powered, 12-barrel rifle-caliber rotary gun developed in Germany during the First World War. The action of the Fokker-Leimberger differed from that of a Gatling in that it employed a rotary split-breech design, also known as a "nutcracker". Fokker claimed the gun achieved over 7200 rpm, although this may be an exaggeration. Failures during the war were attributed to the poor quality of German wartime ammunition,Weyl"Motor Guns-A flashback to 1914-18"''Flight'', 8 March 1957, pages 313-314 although a British 1950s experimental weapon with the same type of breech had ruptured-case problems. Fokker continued to experiment with this type of breech after his post-war move to the United States. A different Fokker prototype in a US museum attests to the failure of this line of development. Design The Fokker-Leimberger used a rotary split-breech design known as the "nutcracker". In this design a temporary chamber is formed by joining the two cavi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chain Gun
A chain gun is a type of autocannon or machine gun that uses an external source of power to cycle the weapon's action, rather than diverting excess energy from the cartridges' propellant as in a typical automatic firearm, and does so via a continuous loop of chain drive similar to that used on a motorcycle or bicycle. History In 1972, Hughes Helicopters began a company-funded research effort to design a single machine gun to fire the U.S. Army's M50 round. By April 1973, the program had fired test rounds in more powerful WECOM linked ammunition, from a prototype (A model). In January 1975 a model "C" was added, a linkless version for the proposed Advanced Attack Helicopter YAH-64; the helicopter was later adopted as the Hughes Model 77/AH-64A Apache, with the model C (receiving the designation M230 chain gun) as standard armament. In 1976, Hughes Helicopters successfully patented the chain gun, and it has since been further developed into several other system of different c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SpinLaunch
SpinLaunch is a spaceflight technology new product development, development company working on Mass driver, mass accelerator technology to move payloads to outer space, space. As of September 2022, the company has raised US$150 million in funding, with investors including Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures, Airbus Ventures, ATW Partners, Catapult Ventures, Lauder Partners, John Doerr, and the Byers Family. History SpinLaunch was founded in 2014 by Jonathan Yaney in Sunnyvale, California. The company's headquarters are in Long Beach, California, Long Beach. In 2020 it opened a launch site. SpinLaunch continued development of its 140,000 square-foot (13,000 m2) corporate headquarters in Long Beach, and of its flight test facility at Spaceport America in New Mexico. In late 2021, SpinLaunch was named one of the "World's Best Employers in the Space Industry" by Everything Space, a recruitment platform specializing in the space industry. In March 2022, SpinLaunch was listed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MythBusters (2007 Season)
The cast of the television series ''MythBusters'' performs experiments to verify or debunk urban legends, old wives' tales, and the like. This is a list of the various myths tested on the show, as well as the results of the experiments (the myth is MythBusters#Outcomes of the experiments, Busted, Plausible, or Confirmed). Episode overview Episode 70 – "Hindenberg Mystery" * Original air date: January 10, 2007 Hindenburg Mystery Crocodile Zig Zags Episode 71 – "Pirate Special" * Original air date: January 17, 2007 This was a double-length episode. Cannonball vs. Shrapnel Eye Patch Knife Sail Rum: Stain Remover? Episode 72 – "Underwater Car" * Original air date: January 24, 2007 Underwater Car According to the American Automobile Association, an estimated 11,000 vehicles crashed into bodies of water in one year. The MythBusters tested various methods of escaping a sinking car, in this case a Ford Taurus. Having confirmed the myth, Adam and Jam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Handgun
A handgun is a short- barrelled gun, typically a firearm, that is designed to be usable with only one hand. It is distinguished from a long gun (i.e. rifle, shotgun or machine gun, etc.), which needs to be held by both hands and also braced against the shoulder to be used properly. The two most common types of handguns in modern times are revolvers and semi-automatic pistols, although other types such as derringers and machine pistols also see infrequent usage. Before commercial mass production, handguns were often considered a badge of office, comparable to a ceremonial sword. As they had limited utility and were more expensive than the long guns of the era, the few who could only afford to purchase them carried these handguns. However, in 1836, Samuel Colt patented the Colt Paterson, the first practical mass-produced revolver, which was capable of firing five shots in rapid succession and very quickly became a popular defensive weapon, giving rise to the saying, "God cre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Annals Of Improbable Research
The ''Annals of Improbable Research'' (''AIR'') is a bimonthly magazine devoted to scientific humor, in the form of a satirical take on the standard academic journal. ''AIR'', published six times a year since 1995, usually showcases at least one piece of scientific research being done on a strange or unexpected topic, but most of their articles concern real or fictional absurd experiments, such as a comparison of apples and oranges using infrared spectroscopy. Other features include such things as ratings of the cafeterias at scientific institutes, fake classifieds and advertisements for a medical plan called HMO-NO, and a very odd letters page. The magazine is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ''AIR'' awards the annual science Ig Nobel Prizes, for ten achievements that "first make people laugh, and then make them think". ''AIR'' also runs the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. History ''AIR'' is not the first science parody magazine. The ''Journal of Irrepro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Scientist
''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publishes a monthly Dutch-language edition. First published on 22 November 1956, ''New Scientist'' has been available in online form since 1996. Sold in retail outlets (paper edition) and on subscription (paper and/or online), the magazine covers news, features, reviews and commentary on science, technology and their implications. ''New Scientist'' also publishes speculative articles, ranging from the technical to the philosophical. ''New Scientist'' was acquired by Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) in March 2021. History Ownership The magazine was founded in 1956 by Tom Margerison, Max Raison and Nicholas Harrison as ''The New Scientist'', with Issue 1 on 22 November 1956, priced at one shilling (a twentieth of a pound in pre-decimal UK cu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
