Can you fire guns in Space?

Most of us will say no. Because from our early school days we know fire needs oxygen to burn. So when you are in the atmosphere less void of space, there is no way to ignite gunpowder to fire a bullet, right? Wrong. The explosion that fires a bullet does require oxygen for combustion, but it doesn’t draw it solely from the air. Rather, some oxygen comes from an ingredient in the gunpowder itself, called saltpeter (Potassium nitrate). The spark produced when the gun’s hammer strikes the cartridge ignites the saltpeter and converts the oxygen in it to its gaseous state. The explosion generates a shock wave that propels the bullet out of the gun. It would certainly help if you pack your cartridges with extra saltpeter to get the same pop in space.

But it won’t be all too easy. Remember the guy named Newton? And his popular third law of motion. The kickback of the gunshot that normally throws your arm backward after you fire a round would instead send your entire body flying backwards.
Are you still going to take a shot?

info: popular science.

Perfect Accountant and Lazy Communist

I studied Thermodynamics starting from my science class in school and I still remember how joyfully I used to reiterate “Energy can neither be created and nor be destroyed”. I loved this law and later learned that this principle is basic to the first law of thermodynamics.

Recently I stumbled upon an Interesting article which described Mother Nature as a perfect accountant but also lazy communist based upon the law of thermodynamics. Let me try to explain this in entertaining way.

Perfect Accountant: Nature has to perform meticulous accounting because energy can neither be created nor be destroyed, though it readily changes forms. So, Mother Nature makes sure that there is always exactly as much energy around after something happens as there was before.

Lazy Communist: Please don’t judge me wrong I am not being harsh. My only concern now is to entertain you. The Lazy communist part comes from the second law of thermodynamics. Lazy because natural systems generally tend toward the lowest energy state possible and Communist because natural systems also tend toward the most equal distribution of energy. Aa…ha that’s why every morning the cream I pour into my coffee blends evenly throughout the cup, even if I don’t stir it.

Today I locked apartment’s key inside so in effect I was locked outside. To make good use of time I went to university’s dairy for Ice-cream. On my way back, all of a sudden the Ice-cream dropped and I could do nothing but watch the hot asphalt melt fallen ice-cream. Obviously I was saddened by the incident but it was all natural thing happening. Heat always travels from areas of high energy to low, so asphalt melted the ice-cream rather than drawing heat from it and thus keeping it frozen.
Natural events always proceed towards states of grater disorder. That’s why every once in a while my shoelaces come untied and never once they have retied themselves. That’s probably the reason why my desk always get messier and never neater (Its all governed by the natural laws who am I to change it).

VOID

Once upon a time when I was relatively smaller (in size, shape, age and also in thinking) I heard an astonishing fact. It goes like this “Only 29.2% of earth’s surface is land and rest is water (70.8%)”. “My goodness” I shouted and the reaction was pretty obvious because I never found great deal of water when I traveled around (It was more obvious in summer when me and my brother after finishing our morning school had to walk almost a mile to transport water from ever shrinking small well). Yes I knew earlier from my school textbooks that there are cool stuffs like seas and oceans as well but it never came to my imagination that water is actually more than land. To add to this astonishment I later found that water is responsible for 61.8% of human body weight.

I still do read, hear and participate in “water talk”. It seems human always find enjoyment in knowing the percentage of water in every imaginable object. The “% of water” talk goes from coconut to cocktail, from brain to bread and from mango to mars. But for the sake of change and also to make these talks even more interesting, today I have taken another entity in consideration instead of water and that coincidentally is the title of the story “Void”. We all know that an atom is the smallest unit of an element that retains the chemical properties of that element. In an Atom, Protons and neutrons are approximately the same size, while electrons are very much smaller. Now to take the discussion further lets take the example of a helium atom. If a basketball were used to represent the nucleus of a helium atom, then, on the same scale, softballs could represent the individual protons and neutrons, while large garden peas could represent the electrons. In this case, the diameter of an electron’s orbit would be approximately equal to the length of 250 American football fields [1]. Thus, the majority of an atom consists of void. If majority of atom is void then majority of us is void and it applies to everything around us. Yes, that’s the point I was trying to make. Now, just imagine your size excluding the void.

The bible says “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.” (Mark 10:25). But if all the empty space were removed from the atoms it would be possible for the camel to pass through the eye of a needle (Good news for rich man?). Oops wait a minute if all the void were removed from the atoms if will not only shrink the camel but also the needle. (Better luck next time “rich man”)


1. Bebop to the Boolean Boogie by Clive Maxfield.