Abstract
II. GOING back now to the photographs, the next one was taken with the view of illustrating the effect on the inclination of the waves of the velocity of the bullet. In this case the bullet was aluminium; it was only one-seventh the weight of the regulation bullet. In consequence of its lightness it travelled about half as fast again as the ordinary bullet (not √7 times as fast as it would have done if the pressure of the powder-gases had been the same in the two cases), and in consequence of the higher speed the inclination of the waves is still greater than in the previous case. Further, in this case the bullet was made to pierce a piece of card shortly before it was photographed. The little pieces that were cut out were driven forward at a high speed, but, being lighter than the bullet, they soon lost a large part of their velocity; they had in consequence lagged behind when they were photographed, but though travelling more slowly (they were still going at more than 1100 feet a second) they yet made each its own air wave, which became less and less inclined as the bits lagged more and more behind; each, moreover, produced its own trail of vortices like that following the bullet. The well-known fact that moving things tend to take the position of greatest resistance, to avoid the effect of which the bullet has to be made to spin, is also illustrated in the photograph. The little pieces that are large enough to be clearly seen are moving broadside on, and not edgeways, as might be expected.
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On Electric Spark Photographs; or, Photography of Flying Bullets, &c., by the Light of the Electric Spark1. Nature 47, 440–446 (1893). https://doi.org/10.1038/047440a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/047440a0
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