Re: Railgun: Branching technologies

Okay I see the breakdown in communication. Oerjan Ohlson and I need to
back
up the use of the term "Railgun" one step. To wit:

Railgun:
    two rails and a capacitor, when any conductor is dropped across the
rails it is propelled with the lorenz effect.

Railgun - Lorenz Effect Mass Driver (As opposed to a Gaussian Mass
Driver)
    The device Oerjan describes. Drop a substantial conductive mass on
the
rails and throw it like an ungrounded arc-welder. For military
applications
drop a conductive saboted, penetrator round.

Railgun - Lorenz Effect Plasma Driver
    The device I describe as *BASIC*. A scientific device without
military
application. Drop a small conductor on the rails and watch it fry while
being hurled along the rails

Railgun - Lorenz Effect Plasma Driver - Slugthrower
    Here's where we get into the all important Demented Engineering
Students: A slugthrower that uses expanding AND traveling plasma to
throw a
"slug".

Railgun - Lorenz Effect Plasma Driver - "Rocket Nozzle focus"
    Another Demented Engineering Student device: Using the accellerative
properties of a rocket engine nozzle to accellerate the plama to reach
it's
target before disipating.

Railgun - Lorenz Effect Plasma Driver - "Microwave Pulse Magnetic
Containment"
    The last D. E. S. devive *I'm* aware of, I'm sure there's more: Use
a
microwave pulse to organise the plasma into "Shells" that spin
generating a
magnetic containment, constraining the plasma, untill it hits something.

    And with a final sweep of my magic wand I prove my philisophial
point
about restricting and mis-using language: The Railgun is, for the
programming minded, an "Ancestor". The divergent technologies between
"Current" (read experimental) military applications and scientific
applications (current and past) generate different "Objects" ( R.G.
-Lorenz
effect mass driver vs. R.G. - Lorenz Effect Plasma Driver). Each of
these
objects can have "Children" (the R.G. - L.E. Plasma Driver variants, I'm
unaware of any signifigant variants for the R.E. - L.E. Mass Driver).
    Both Oerjan and I failed to use the term Railgun correctly, to mean
the
basic device regardeless of the ammunition. And so I prove my point in
my
last post: If we, all of humanity, restrict our definition of terms to
the
most specific level, of a branch of technology, we will invariably fail
to
see the other possibilies. There are possibly hundreds of variants on
the
Railgun, but when I failed to recognise throwing the mass directly with
the
lorenz effect on the rails I failed to acknoledge the existance of an
entire
branch of possibilities.

    As a last note: If anyone thinks that any of the forms of railguns
are
impossible, say so. Say it loud and long. Say it to every knoledgeable
person you can find, and a few that have no idea what you're talking
about.
Someone will prove you wrong.

Rember: Flight was supposed to be impossible until a pair of bicycle
repair-men built the first airplane.

Jim Whitehead