Recent content by y2jayy

Thanks. Can you think of any other systems that would have minimal dissipative forces given the constraints of the problem?

Okay, got it. In my original problem that motivated the thought experiment, I was trying to get the buoyancy to oscillate. I think the following approach would work, but I'm trying to find a way to achieve this without a periodic input of energy. In this situation, the hole isn't being made...

Would the net change be zero, then, with the decrease in the buoyant force caused by the reduction of the air displaced being exactly offset by the decrease in the weight of the system?

I'm a former physics student and I've been thinking about an interesting problem that eventually led me to the following thought experiment that I'm having trouble resolving. Imagine a two-compartment system, where one compartment is filled with He gas, and the other is filled with standard...

So you're saying that there would be the exactly same amount of recoil in the gun I described and a "normal" gun (all other things between the two guns being the same of course)? Or that the recoil will be less, but still greater than zero. I understand what you mean by the impulse at the back...

I was wondering whether the following gun barrel shape would generate less recoil. Imagine that we have a bunch of L-shaped pipes which are closed on their long end and open on their short end. Take 4 of these pipes, and join them up along their short parts so that they form a plus-sign shape...