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a summary of Einstein's gift to mankind...

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in May 1943. The next month Einstein came up with his first suggestion,
a way to make a torpedo detonate just as it passed beneath a ship’s
keel. In Einstein’s scheme a pair of electromagnetic coils at the front
and rear of the torpedo would be connected in series with an
electromagnet between them. The two coils would have opposite magnetic
polarity, so when the torpedo was far from the target ship, the induced
current between them would be zero for reasons of symmetry. As the
torpedo approached the ship, the hull’s magnetic field would start to be
felt. Since the field would be stronger at the front of the torpedo than
at the rear, it would induce a current. Then when the torpedo passed
beneath the keel, the fields from either side of the hull would cancel
each other out, and the current would briefly dip to zero, setting off
the detonator.

In August Einstein turned his attention to torpedoes detonated by
contact rather than magnetic impulses. He explained why the explosive
charge in such torpedoes should be placed at the front instead of the
rear and suggested a protruding hollow tip, possibly armed with a
projectile, to increase the likelihood of puncturing the hull instead of
just shaking it. But contact detonation raised a new problem: The force
of a violent collision with the hull could crush the head of the torpedo
before detonation was completed.

In October Einstein suggested a possible way around this difficulty: Put
the explosive in the rear of the torpedo and rotate it after impact to
bring the business end closer. At first he thought the increased water
speed right next to a ship’s moving hull would do the trick. Two months
later, though, he decided that even if his idea could be made to work,
the turning forces would destroy the torpedo. Once again he proposed
adding a small empty space at the front. It would crumple before the
rest of the head, buying a few extra thousandths of a second to give the
explosive time to detonate properly. (Navy engineers eventually solved
the problem by redesigning the contact detonator’s firing pin.)

--
 On January 23, 1950, Einstein wrote in a letter.. I have never taken
part in work of a military-technical nature... 


-- 
The Starmaker -- To question the unquestionable, ask the unaskable,
 to think the unthinkable, mention the unmentionable, say the unsayable,
and challenge
 the unchallengeable.

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a summary of Einstein's gift to mankind... The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2022-09-26 11:26 -0700
  Re: a summary of Einstein's gift to mankind... The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2022-09-26 11:46 -0700
    Re: a summary of Einstein's gift to mankind... The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2022-09-26 22:47 -0700
  Re: a summary of Einstein's gift to mankind... The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2022-09-26 11:51 -0700
    Re: a summary of Einstein's gift to mankind... Richard Hertz <hertz778@gmail.com> - 2022-09-26 13:17 -0700
  Re: a summary of Einstein's gift to mankind... nospam@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J. Lodder) - 2022-09-27 12:53 +0200
    Re: a summary of Einstein's gift to mankind... Siri Cruise <chine.bleu@yahoo.com> - 2022-09-27 10:47 -0700
  Re: a summary of Einstein's gift to mankind... The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2022-09-29 00:20 -0700
    Re: a summary of Einstein's gift to mankind... The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2022-09-29 12:06 -0700

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