Torpedoes, Missiles, and Cannons: Physics Goes to War
PHYSICS AT WAR In January 1878 Russian speedboats raced toward an enemy warship in the Black Sea The Russians and their allies were at war with the Ottoman Empire of modern Turkey The Russians wanted to gain territory on the Black Sea which was under Ottoman control The Russian speedboats traveled quickly The guns of the Turkish warship Intibah could easily destroy them The Russian crews used speed to get close enough to fire their weapons A torpedo blast sinks the Turkish steamer The Russians used a new weapon called a Intibah as Russian Whitehead torpedo The torpedoes sped speedboats wait through the water powered by compressed nearby This painting was created by the air They struck the Intibah below the Russian artist Lev waterline and the ship sank It was the first Lagorio Konstantin time small boats had destroyed a warship in
SCIENCE SKILLS The Whitehead torpedo was invented by a British engineer named Robert Whitehead Whitehead was a skilled physicist Physics is the science concerned with the nature of matter and energy Physics has influenced weapons design for centuries Physicists invented new kinds of bullets and missiles They learned how to use the explosive force of gunpowder in weapons such as rockets They developed new weapons such as the machine gun Physicists have also studied how to use light heat and sound in warfare ENERGY OF THE ATOM In the early twentieth century physicists began to understand the structure of the atom An atom is the smallest particle of a chemical element that can exist Physicists figured out how to use atoms to create a huge explosion The first atom bomb exploded in 1945 It helped to end World War II 1939 1945 and transformed warfare It also changed the course of human history A fireball rises over a huge explosion caused by an atom bomb A nuclear explosion creates a mushroom shaped cloud as the force of the explosion pulls smoke and debris high into air the
BOWS AND CATAPULTS Bows and arrows were first used in the Stone Age Native peoples in the Americas Asia and Africa continued to use bows as weapons until the nineteenth century Fhe bow is a simple but efficient weapon It I consists of a bowstring tied tightly between two ends of a curved piece of wood The ends of the bow act as levers The archer's hand acts as the fulcrum The archer draws the arrow back in the bowstring to create tension English archers right meet French soldiers armed with crossbows left at the Battle of Crécy in
SCIENCE FILE When the archer releases the string it propels the arrow forward Bows create kinetic energy so the arrow travels quickly and creates a powerful force In the Middle Ages when soldiers began to wear armor an arrow with a steel tip could penetrate even thick metal armor ARROWS IN BATTLE In ancient times groups of archers on foot or on horseback fired hundreds or thousands of arrows at the same time The rain of arrows they created devastated enemy troop formations Then in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Europe archers used a new weapon the longbow oo000 FILE 0000000 Arrow Flights In ancient times people tried to design arrows that would fly straight They learned to attach tail feathers to the arrow These feathers or fletchings caused the arrow to spin as it flew That helped to make the arrow's line of flight straighter The study of objects that fly through the air is a branch of physics called aerodynamics Ooooooooooooooo The tail feathers at the back of an arrow help it to straighter fly
