• Randelung@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    That train will just keep coming. Once such a freight train is going you better get out of the way. The amount of kinetic energy that’s coming towards you is dwarfing compared to a measly tank.

      • realitista@lemm.ee
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        3 days ago

        It seems to be a lot, how does it compare to an artillery shell? The tank doesn’t look like it fared too badly.

        • uis@lemm.ee
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          3 days ago

          Artillery shell with 1 kg of TNT has explosion energy of about 1 kg of TNT

          • realitista@lemm.ee
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            3 days ago

            Do they actually use TNT as the explosive though? I thought TNT was just the igniter for something more powerful like C4 or something.

            • warbond@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              I don’t think TNT is used at all, I’m pretty sure it’s some explosive compound, as you said. However, explosives are still measured in terms of TNT, called Net Explosive Weight (NEW).

              For example, one pound of C4 has a NEW of about 1.25 pounds.

      • qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website
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        5 days ago

        I don’t think your units make sense — kinetic energy has units of energy, but “kg TNT per second” is power (about 4MW). (I think just remove the “every second” and it’s correct?)

        Edit: parent edited comment.

        • 5714@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          5 days ago

          You’re right, but “every second” was meant more as a display of the energy in the train, like a large explosion “every second”. Is that very wrong?

          • qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website
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            5 days ago

            Hmmm, I’m not sure I understand…

            A large explosion every second has units of power, not energy. So to me this is suggesting that the train is putting out power equal to its kinetic energy per second. That’s certainly not the case — it implies that the train is powerful enough to accelerate to the speed in 1s, which is definitely not true.

            But that’s just my interpretation.