ease my tormented mind

[Joe24]

If i shot a bullet out the front of a train, then tried to catch it up, could i?
After how long does a bullet start losing speed?

 

[fossyant]

Trains are crap in the UK - you are a goner.......... get a bike.. ?

 

[migmiller]

so, I'm standing at a bus stop and a tandem going at 300mph with a criminal facing backwards etc etc etc you know the rest.....................................
Now where were we?..................................

 

[Joe24]

If i shot a bullet out the front of a train, then tried to catch it up, could i?
After how long does a bullet start losing speed?

Thats it then, ive out smarted the man with a baby permanently to his back.

 

[Headgardener]

Hate to pour oil on the musings of this puzzle but at the moment no passenger train in this country can reach 300 MPH on open straight track let alone while passing through a station. Don't know what the speed of a bullet from a hand gun is but Superman can fly faster than one.

 

[Bman]

Guns dont fire at a perfect velocity. So some gun physics cant really be applied here.

So lets assume the OP means "gun" to be "an object to propell a projectile 0-300mph in a the direction it is pointed, instantly".

If it is fired inside the train, directly opposite the direction of travel, it will travel at 0mph as it would appear from the station, but 300 mph to anyone on the train. The same force would be applied if the two met regardless of the speed of the train.

Now that bullet would be dropping (at less than 300mph) and also slowing down as it flies through the air in the train (traveling at 300mph). Almost like a bomb dropped from a plane.

Fire it out the window, and the air outside is working the other way, except being dragged along my the train slightly. It would be like the OP on the platform had just dropped a bullet from his hand.

If that doesn’t make sense : The bullet wouldn’t hit the OP on the platform.

IANAQP (I Am Not A Quantum Physicist). That’s basically how I understand it.

 

[Hover Fly]

In practice the speed of the train would be negligible compared to the bullet, Train 300 mph,(thats nearly twice as fast as a TGV), bullet approx 2,200 mph. If the gun fired very slowly the bullet would drop to the floor.

Try this one. A slow empty goods van train is travelling at 30 mph. As a man at the front of the train passes an observer on the trackside he throws a ball to his mate at the back of the same van at 30 mph. Ignoring wind resistance, what will the observer on the platform see?

 

[Globalti]

If the speeds are both perfectly at 30 mph the observer will see the ball rise into the air while staying absolutely stationary then the second bloke will come uo at 30 mph and catch it as it falls.

 

[Speicher]

Trying to look at this logically

At the instant the gun is fired, say 0.02 of a second, the gun could be considered stationary. The Firing mechanism of the gun is not affected by the speed of the vehicle conveying the person who is firing the gun.

BTW why is the train driver of that particular train called Mr Davies?

In practice the speed of the train would be negligible compared to the bullet, Train 300 mph,(thats nearly twice as fast as a TGV), bullet approx 2,200 mph. If the gun fired very slowly the bullet would drop to the floor.

Thank you Hover Fly, for your more scientific explanation. I was trying to think how fast the bullet would travel in the time taken to fire the gun.

 

[Hover Fly]

If the speeds are both perfectly at 30 mph the observer will see the ball rise into the air while staying absolutely stationary then the second bloke will come uo at 30 mph and catch it as it falls.

The correct answer is:

The observer will only see the sides of the train. Goods vans don't have windows.

 

[karlos_the_jackal]

I wouldnt think the bullet would drop, the power associated with the firing mechanism is seperate and none effected by movement, e.g. it is an independent action. The same with a tennis ball, i would of thought.

The power at point of throw is unaffected. This would also be the case if you drove something on the floor e.g. a remote controlled car. The power would still be there regardless of the movement of the train. The only thing effecting the bullett would be the direction and power of the wind that the speed was causing.

Thats just a theory have no maths qualification except GCSE (before the days of multiple choice)

Good that im cycle commutting today because i reckon theres going to be a hell of a lot of train stoppages tonight.

For a slower experiment version we could all go to an airport and go on the moving walkways!

 

[migmiller]

I wasn't trying to cast aspersions on the speed or not of our train systems. it just seemed that 300 would be a decent hypothetical speed.

I'm ok with the theory of projectile motion for an object dropped. so if said bad guy dropped bullet (excusing air resistance) said bullet would be level with him when it landed. This is probably more useful to know in relation to grenades.

I am influenced by the gun stationary at the point of firing but it's just not the case is it because the gun is travelling backwards at 300 mph

Does "acceleration" come into this

I do like the idea of the travellator at the airport. Perhaps we could do a Dennis the Menace raid with either catapults or spud guns to test..

I wish I had stuck in at Physics