Firing a gun into the air

[Anarkistsdream]

By the way, betiko... How many times have you been to Burger King since they reopened?

[betiko]

By the way, betiko... How many times have you been to Burger King since they reopened?

Just once. There is probably not that much queue anymore, but since I had to queue for an hour the second day of its opening when I went there.. i m kind of over it!

[Gillipig]

It disappears, duh.

[/]

It races back down to strike the last person who crosses the finish line. These days the squeamish wimps use blanks though, and that's why I don't watch the Olympics.

[mrswdk]

I'm looking forward to flying home over Chinese New Year. It gives me a chance to visit the Burger King in Beijing Airport.

[KoolBak]

Interesting question....I think the earth moves approx. 17 miles / minute or 1,500 feet / second at the equator, so around 750 ft / second where I am.....if the bullet is in the air 20 seconds, that's a hell of a distance! I assume the atmosphere is moving similarly or else there would be a constant wind, right? Too bad there's no way to actually measure this effect.....

[crispybits]

I was obviously talking about a bullet fired directly upwards with no wind effects from the exact rotational pole (north or south doesnt matter) - duh!

Assume 450 m/s muzzle velocity, the bullet will be in the air for just under 92 seconds on a vertical shot, so if fired at the equator you would be about 1.75-1.8 metres away when it came down - so for an average-tall person hold a gun in one hand and a cup in the other and don't move and you'll catch the bullet in the cup (assuming exact alignment, no wind and firing directly upwards for the pedants)

Edit - actually longer because a bullet only reaches 90 m/s on the way down and I cba to work it out beyond what I've already done... to quote Serbia

Bollocks

[KoolBak]

How do you come up with ~2 meters at the equator? You / the earth will have travelled ~25 miles in 1.5 minutes...given the bullet has the same sideways momentum that you do when it leaves the barrel......just wonderin.....

[crispybits]

By trying to do napkin conversions of miles/km and hours/minutes/seconds and then sneezing on the napkin and blowing my nose and in the middle of all that somewhere getting slightly confused. As I said:

Bollocks

[Metsfanmax]

Not sure if this is correct. You're assuming that the rotational velocity due to gravity is lost, like twirling a rock on a string and letting go. Since gravity can be assumed to be constant, then the rotational velocity for both car/ball or bullet/rifle will be the same and so would have the same curvature assuming no interference from air resistance. The penny/globe analogy is incorrect as an analogy because you're throwing the penny with a straight horizontal motion towards an already spinning globe.

-TG

If we could assume gravity to be exactly the same when comparing the surface and whatever height the bullet reaches, then you'd be right. But a bullet might go a mile or two up when it's fired, which could change the gravitational acceleration by up to 0.05%. Any deviation in the gravitational acceleration at the various heights will mean that the bullet won't land exactly where it was fired from, because the circular velocity will be different at different elevations.

[KoolBak]

By trying to do napkin conversions of miles/km and hours/minutes/seconds and then sneezing on the napkin and blowing my nose and in the middle of all that somewhere getting slightly confused. As I said:

Bollocks

[TA1LGUNN3R]

Not sure if this is correct. You're assuming that the rotational velocity due to gravity is lost, like twirling a rock on a string and letting go. Since gravity can be assumed to be constant, then the rotational velocity for both car/ball or bullet/rifle will be the same and so would have the same curvature assuming no interference from air resistance. The penny/globe analogy is incorrect as an analogy because you're throwing the penny with a straight horizontal motion towards an already spinning globe.

-TG

If we could assume gravity to be exactly the same when comparing the surface and whatever height the bullet reaches, then you'd be right. But a bullet might go a mile or two up when it's fired, which could change the gravitational acceleration by up to 0.05%. Any deviation in the gravitational acceleration at the various heights will mean that the bullet won't land exactly where it was fired from, because the circular velocity will be different at different elevations.

Thanks. I forgot about that, and that's what I was looking for. Simply assigning the variation to curvature seemed incorrect.

-TG

[notyou2]

I'm looking forward to flying home over Chinese New Year. It gives me a chance to visit the Burger King in Beijing Airport.

Beware stray bullets while you are flying.

[mrswdk]

I'm looking forward to flying home over Chinese New Year. It gives me a chance to visit the Burger King in Beijing Airport.

Beware stray bullets while you are flying.

I'm gonna take an umbrella for my walk to the subway station.