• msprout@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    This is basically how a rail cannon coil gun works, just with electromagnets that can reverse their polarity.

    It’s a powerful way to accelerate anything — I think it’s most famously used in those types of metal roller coasters that start you at a flat-with-the-ground angle, and then just fuckin launch you up a ramp to 45° with electromagnets. The issue is that you need a fuckton of energy to do that.

    What we need for true perpetual energy is to just capture that guy Blanka from Street Fighter.

    • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
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      13 hours ago

      That’s not how a railgun works, that’s how a coilgun works. Railguns create a loop of electric current that flows into one “wire” (the rail), through the projectile into the other wire, and back down to the starting point again, this configuration creates a force that pushes the projectile down the rails

      • msprout@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        Ah, I appreciate the correction. I’m not an engineer but the youngest cousin of a clan of them, so I just got the highlights of the true evil genius shit. :p