When you have a balloon floating in a car and start driving, instead of getting thrown back, it actually flies forward. What? Are balloons immune to inertia? Is physics broken? Nope. As SmarterEveryDay explains, it actually makes perfect sense, as science always does.
The slapshot is the fastest shot in hockey. One satisfying thwack and the puck goes flying at incredible speeds. Except it’s not really one thwack, it’s two, and our buddy Destin at Smarter Every Day has both the science know-how and the super high-speed slow-motion cameras to show you exactly how it works.
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You may remember our friend Destin at Smarter Every Day shooting an AK-47 underwater
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The AK-47 can be considered the Timex watch of the gun world. It takes a licking, and keeps on ticking, except that by ticking we of course mean firing round after round of ammunition. The automatic machine gun is based on a gas recoil system that uses the hot expanding gases of a bullet being fired to automatically rechamber the next round, and surprisingly, it appears to work even better under water.
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We’re big fans of the Smarter Every Day and Slingshot YouTube channels—so it’s always nice when Destin and Joerg, their respective owners, get together. This time round, they use high-speed photography to take a close look at the physics of hand-held slingshots—and work out how to make them as destructive as possible. More »
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