theholykrael

I apologise for being a little late to this discussion, but as an avid student of Astronomy and Physics, I thought I'd make a suggestion for a possible setup. Firstly though, I've seen it mentioned that "The lighter object orbits the heavier one", and while I appreciate the logic that's actually not strictly the case. You can take as an example any number of stars in binary orbits, where you may have a range of differing masses, and even mass exchange between them (hence the term Mass Exchange Binaries). My own personal thoughts are that you could have a very young star orbiting at a reasonable distance from a protostellar accretionary disk. Basically that's a star orbiting what will eventually also be a star, and likely a few planets.

As Externet says, it'll be the TFT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin-film_transistor

In answer to your first question (and I really hate to quote wikipedia) it seems clear to me that the wavelength doesn't specifically matter as long as you have the two slits seperated by less than that wavelength. It also offers the implied value of 0.6μm (6.0 x 10^(-7) m), which is in the NIR part of the EM spectrum, rather than being visible light. I'd be happy to be corrected though, as neither wikipedia nor I are experts on the matter. To add to your second question (but perhaps not answer it), the eye is a bit backwards. We have our retina at the back of the eye, interrupted in a 'blind spot' by the intrusion of the optic bundle. This optic bundle contains the nerves and blood supply for the eye, and passes the blood vessels through the retina and out in front of it. In short, 'floaters' in the eye, (which I always used to describe as 'worms'), are actually bood vessels. If you look at a purely white background with just one eye... (PC monitor will work) and form a tiny ring with your thumb and first finger then hold that as close to your eye as you can, you will create a very small 'window' that you can see through. Then, gradually let your eye unfocus (i.e. 'just relax') and vibrate your hand around just a few millimeters. What this does is offer your eye a rapid shifting of the direction of incoming light in a very short space of time, and this actually lets you see the blood vessels in good detail as thin black lines on the white background, with a white 'hole' in the center. If you're seeing something OTHER than what I just described in your tests... then I haven't got a clue what that might be. Just thought I'd share what I know in case it helps you eliminate the possibility.

Boolean.

Are you saying that to assume an elastic collision resulting in Ball A being at rest (newton's cradle style) would be to assume equivalent masses? Would the easiest solution to the problem simply be to rearrange conservation of momentum into Pa/Pb=? A quick correction to my post as well... I should have written: mava2 = mbvb2

The design seems incredibly complex to manufacture, and would need to outperform existing munitions to be viable in your story without suspension of disbelief. How do you disengage the ballistic shell? Removing it will likely render your bullet horribly innaccurate. With small, thin (easily deformed) hooks and a hard 'penetrating' material, how does it offer expansion and soft-tissue deceleration beyond existing hollow-points? With a 'free floating' firing pin, how do you guarantee the safety of the user from accidental ignition during loading/handling/transport? I have a few other questions, but I don't actually need any of them answered... I'm just tossing out hurdles which would prevent this kind of ammunition being a viable replacement for what already exists. Frankly, if you're trying to make things burn and pierce, I would have thought you'd be looking at existing depleted-uranium rounds, and then modifying their design to your needs. If you're trying to pierce and expand within the body, then you're in the market for a kind of bullet with cross-purposes. You can't have a soft shell and a hard center if you want to penetrate, and you can't have a hard shell and a soft center if you want to expand. You need a way to shed the hard shell of the bullet after penetration, but before exiting the body... and that's one hell of a challenge. Might I just suggest trying to find something which fragments really well, pierces moderately, and is highly toxic or corrosive? Or maybe look into frozen bullets... Not water though. Maybe mercury? If this is a vein of thought which interests you, it might be worth considering a propulsion method which doesn't generate heat. Compressed air would be my best guess. Speaking as an avid reader of all things sci-fi, my view is that it's simpler to accept something into the flow of the story if it's easily explained, rather than something which really needs a diagram to get across.

Ordinarily, you would need to know if ball A is at rest after the collision, but since the required answer is requested in absolute form, and assuming 'positive' values to be in the direction of the original momentum Pa... it's safe to say we can assume ball A to be at rest post-collision. Given that assumption, I'd probably answer the question essentially in english, as a perfectly elastic collision maintains both momentum and kinetic energy. The question therefore gives the answer in itself, in that Pa = Pb, therefore Pa/Pa = 1, and 1 < 2. That said, if it is (or 'was'... old thread I know) a homework question and some working were expected to be shown, you can prove the conservation of momentum via the equation for the conservation of kinetic energy, as both KE and P are proportional to both mass and velocity. This is largely academic though, because all you end up proving is that mava = mbvb, even though ma and mb need not necessarily be equal.