Althouse: "I seriously had no idea it would be that lovely... the artifacts that you begin to see — mushroom clouds and little rivulets of gases forming on flame fronts of pressure waves!"

August 18, 2015

"I seriously had no idea it would be that lovely... the artifacts that you begin to see — mushroom clouds and little rivulets of gases forming on flame fronts of pressure waves!"

"I'm not sure that many people in the world have even looked at... It's just really cool."

46 comments:

chuck said...: I wish the annoying people would STFU and just show the video.; 8/18/15, 4:14 PM
Michael K said...: Nice to watch the interval before the movable slide moves back.; 8/18/15, 4:34 PM
rhhardin said...: This is old stuff. There was a book of bullet stop-action photos (called Flash! ?) in the 50s.

Strobe lights stop the action.; 8/18/15, 5:04 PM
mikee said...: Almost everything, observed very closely, becomes both more beautiful in its details and more mundane overall, at the same time.; 8/18/15, 5:18 PM
Bay Area Guy said...: It's a great insight into the trivial nature of the left-wing mind.

When talking about guns, nobody cares about "rivulets of gases forming on flame fronts of pressure waves," jeez. We care about shooting some dangerous a$$h#le, threatening to cause harm.

Didn't this twerp ever watch Dirty Harry movies in the 70s?; 8/18/15, 5:18 PM
great Unknown said...: re: rhhardin
strobe lights freeze the action to give a single frame. Indeed, there are many examples from the fifties, such as a bullet penetrating an incandescent bulb.

but video is a totally different effect, and in this case, far more beautiful.
The difference between watching a movie and seeing a few slides.

Not so beautiful to someone watching it head on.; 8/18/15, 5:21 PM
Ann Althouse said...: @chuck and rh

You've written crabby comments without having seen the video, I can tell.; 8/18/15, 5:25 PM
Dan Hossley said...: I like the sight of a bullet exiting the barrel of a gun. Looks like....victory.; 8/18/15, 5:34 PM
john said...: A cool shot of a shot.; 8/18/15, 5:36 PM
chuck said...: You've written crabby comments without having seen the video, I can tell.

Trust me, you cannot tell. The video of the shot was great, the presenters were annoying and got in the way.; 8/18/15, 5:40 PM
Smilin' Jack said...: It's so sad that we'll never be able to see a nuclear explosion filmed with this camera.; 8/18/15, 6:04 PM
Anonymous said...: This is what a real gun looks like when fired:

http://www.blackfive.net/.a/6a00d8341bfadb53ef01b8d144a277970c-pi; 8/18/15, 6:25 PM
rhhardin said...: No, I watched it. It's unremarkable. It's all in the book.; 8/18/15, 7:08 PM
Rusty said...: Blogger Ann Althouse said...
@chuck and rh

You've written crabby comments without having seen the video, I can tell.

No. That guy is really annoying.; 8/18/15, 7:10 PM
Ann Althouse said...: He may be annoying, but only after he's shown the video.; 8/18/15, 7:13 PM
MadisonMan said...: I think the guy oversells it. But he is on TV and he has to, I guess.; 8/18/15, 7:16 PM
rhhardin said...: flash! Seeing the unseen by ultra-high speed photography Harold E Edgerion and James R Killian, Jr. Hale, Cushman & Flint, Boston, 1939

$3.00

There's 10 pages of bullets. Here are the first two pic I just took.

1939!

The book was upstairs within 2 feet of where I thought it would be if it made the trip out from NJ in 75.; 8/18/15, 7:17 PM
dbp said...: The video could have been better: They showed the shot a few times, mostly too fast to really appreciate. A ten second long slow motion shot would have made the video several times better and done it in 1/6th the time.; 8/18/15, 7:29 PM
chuck said...: only after he's shown the video.

And then he should have put it in an endless loop. But no, we get the "Oh, wow, light show!" treatment. Maybe he was stoned.; 8/18/15, 7:31 PM
traditionalguy said...: No wonder all the accidental creationists talk and talk about the Big Bang. It is sort of a divine moment with special colors and hot gasses exploding....how cool can it get.; 8/18/15, 7:39 PM
khesanh0802 said...: @Drill Sgt Great shot, however I believe that is a cannon. Yes? The firearm in the video is correctly termed a pistol. You remember: "This is my rifle, this is my gun,etc."? Careless terminology about firearms is an unforgivable sin.; 8/18/15, 8:14 PM
Phil 314 said...: Yes, we see the coolness everyday.

We work in a level 1 trauma hosptal.; 8/18/15, 8:26 PM
Simon Kenton said...: I think Werner Mehl has made the most beautiful videos of bullets - traversing space, impacting, disintegrating. 1 million fps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfDoQwIAaXg

I would love to see a simulation of the coup-contracoup effects of a sizeable asteroid impacting the earth normal to the survace.; 8/18/15, 9:03 PM
Nichevo said...: I believe that the type of cannon which tanks use is known as a gun, as opposed to a howitzer or a mortar.; 8/18/15, 9:12 PM
Quaestor said...: Weapons are cool; they always have been. Some of the first true art objects produced in Paleolithic Europe more than 33,000 years ago were weapons, specifically stone points made so long, thin, and tapered that they could not have survived a single practical use. Since then most weapons have not been strictly utilitarian. They been decorated in sundry ways, quite obviously, but they have also been admired for harmony of line and curve, for the craftsmanship of their construction.

Perhaps the most universally admired firearm is the weapon commonly called the Luger pistol. Everyone who appreciates firearms would love to own one. Part of the fascination undoubted springs from the history of the 20th century and the pivotal role Germany, which adopted the Luger as its standard military sidearm in 1908, played in that history, mostly for ill. However, the Luger was also adopted by nations that never fought in the World Wars. The appeal must stem fundamentally from the form - the elegance of its mechanical action, the perfect angle between the grip and the barrel which allows even first-time shooters to fire the weapon accurately, the care and attention to detail evident in every edge and surface...

Weapons that are only utilitarian, that exist only to violence in the name of the state, seem to be products of socialism. I'm thinking now of the Tokarev pistol and the Kalashinov automatic rifle, ugly killers without soul. Stoner's AR-15, the forefather of many modern American infantry weapons was certainly a killer, but there was an elegance of form there that no commie rifle could match.

Weapons are cool. Weapons also kill and cause suffering, but that's true of many machines that have no utility as weapons of war. In the end it is the ends that the weapon serves that counts, which is not any part of the weapon itself.; 8/18/15, 9:19 PM
Quaestor said...: I believe that the type of cannon which tanks use is known as a gun, as opposed to a howitzer or a mortar.

In English yes, but it's something of an artificial distinction. For example, from the time of the Henry VIII until now crew-served weapons on warships have been known in English as guns, even though the identical piece if used on land could be called a cannon. The inventor of the tank, Winston Churchill, was First Lord of Admiralty at the opening of WWI. As such he chaffed that his arm of service, the Royal Navy, did not have a more decisive role to play in the vicious fighting in Flanders that was killing hundreds of young Britons every day. His inspiration was to turn the inventive genius of the navy's designers and engineers to the problem of creating what Churchill called a "land ship," a mobile armored box, powerfully armed that could cross the deadly space of No Man's Land to destroy German machine guns and artillery. These land ships were described in naval terminology: The front was called the bow, the rear the stern, the plating across the rear was the transom, in between the stern and the bow was the hull. The weapons were guns mounted in sponsons, later in turrets, both terms also borrowed from naval usage. When America adopted tanks she adopted the terminology as well, and even today the weapon is a gun in a turret, the front is still the bow, the body is still the hull.

Imperial Germany built a few tanks in reply to the British and later the French, but not having been designed by the German navy the terminology grew out of the army's lexicon. German persist in this convention to this day as well. In German the tank's weapon is called a Kampfwagenkanone, literally battle vehicle cannon. What Anglo-American soldiers would call an anti-tank gun the Germans call a Panzerabwehrkanone, armor defense cannon. Likewise an anti-aircraft gun is a Fliegerabwehrkanone, airplane defense cannon.

In Anglo-American military parlance the distinction between guns and cannons (The word cannon has been universally replace by howitzer in American usage since WWII.) has been a matter of how the weapons are employed. If an artillery piece fires indirectly at its target in an arced trajectory, then its a howitzer (or cannon). If the weapons fires at its target in a more or less flat-trajectory direct fire mode, then its a gun. However, many guns are mounted such that they can fire in fairly steep arcs like howitzers, and many howitzers are used with the tubes laid horizontally, as many current artillerymen who have fired canister at Taliban fighters can attest.

In German its different. There has never been a more flat-firing high-velocity killer than the infamous FLAK-18, sometimes called the "FLAK 88," and yet is is a cannon in German.; 8/18/15, 10:07 PM
Writ Small said...: I prefer the MIT guy with the trillion frame per second camera that follows light passing through a coke bottle. The Mythbuster gun shot was awesome, but slow motion bullets have been done a lot. Slow motion light - not so much.; 8/19/15, 12:09 AM
Anne in Rockwall, TX said...: Thanks Quaestor. I love learning new stuff!; 8/19/15, 4:45 AM
Quaestor said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/19/15, 5:30 AM
Vet66 said...: Sounds like Harvey Korman's description of his character's thought process in the bathtub scene- Blazing Saddles. That was just before he panicked and had to have his "duckie" in the tub with him. Take-away - never reach into a tub full of suds searching for a lost "duckie."; 8/19/15, 6:52 AM
Rusty said...: Perhaps the most universally admired firearm is the weapon commonly called the Luger pistol. Everyone who appreciates firearms would love to own one. Part of the fascination undoubted springs from the history of the 20th century and the pivotal role Germany, which adopted the Luger as its standard military sidearm in 1908, played in that history, mostly for ill. However, the Luger was also adopted by nations that never fought in the World Wars. The appeal must stem fundamentally from the form - the elegance of its mechanical action, the perfect angle between the grip and the barrel which allows even first-time shooters to fire the weapon accurately, the care and attention to detail evident in every edge and surface...

Until it jams or you have to clean one. Then you'll want a 1911. That's the thing about firearms to people that regularly use them. Reliability is more important than looks or function.; 8/19/15, 7:18 AM
JAORE said...: My 1911 is a beauty.... to me.; 8/19/15, 7:37 AM
Anonymous said...: You don't need a pistol until you really need a pistol. I have to go for a M1911A1 in a shoulder holster.; 8/19/15, 7:52 AM
Expat(ish) said...: I loved my 1911, but I hate to say that any fool (me included) can maintain a Glock more easily.

Plus no tools are required to take it apart. And it's hard to lose the main spring.

But certainly not pretty!

-XC; 8/19/15, 8:32 AM
Expat(ish) said...: @Drill - Only if you left your long gun too far away, right?

-XC; 8/19/15, 8:32 AM
Anonymous said...: khesanh0802 said...
@Drill Sgt Great shot, however I believe that is a cannon. Yes?

It's understandable that a Marine would not understand much about tanks except how to operate the external phone box.

That is a 120mm smooth bore gun, firing APFSDS DU slugs at a bit over a mile a second (twice as fast as you average rifle)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheinmetall_120_mm_gun; 8/19/15, 8:35 AM
Anonymous said...: Expat(ish) said...
@Drill - Only if you left your long gun too far away, right?

when you leave your 120mm long gun in the turret and dismount, having the shoulder holster on means you never leave it behind, cuz when you need it, you really need it.

but yes, I know and appreciate the rules for gun fights.; 8/19/15, 8:38 AM
Wince said...: There is so much horrible, latent violence in that "airbrushed" video of a gun firing.

Althouse should have given us a trigger warning.; 8/19/15, 8:43 AM
Expat(ish) said...: @Drill, ha!; 8/19/15, 9:27 AM
Anonymous said...: In my day, the M1911 was carried in either a black hip level holster (e.g. Infantry officer style) or in a natural leather shoulder holster by Tankers and Cav Troopers. e.g. the cool guys. Anyway, as a tank crewman, you always wore the shoulder holster, on your body. The hip holster attached to your load bearing equipment (LBE) which had your canteen, ammo pouches, compass, first aid kit, etc. You could not wear the LBE in the tank, cuz it snags on the turret hatches and other things and could kill you. So when you dismounted, your pistol always went with you and sometimes you took the time to swap out the CVC (combat vehicle crewman ... what you talked with) helmet for a steel pot and add the LBE on. Most of the time you dismounted with just your CVC, mask and pistol...; 8/19/15, 9:43 AM
Expat(ish) said...: @Drill - I was plinking away with my M1/Carbine (1946 manufacture, Korea issued) and an old guy came over to ask to fire it. He said he'd carried something a lot like it in WWII when he had to "crawl out of my tank to yell at the infantry."

I thought that was really a cool afternoon at the range.

-XC; 8/19/15, 10:24 AM
Unknown said...: Tough crowd. Anybody here actually seen Mythbusters? Thats just Adam. He's the enthusiastic one. Jamie is deadpan. They do tons of other stuff in super slo-mo. One memorable moment was when they filled a cement mixer truck with explosives and vaporized it.

https://youtu.be/4IcHUHRf_S0; 8/19/15, 10:44 AM
rhhardin said...: Here's me on the fencing team, 1960s, with my sabre.

You people and your guns.; 8/19/15, 11:43 AM
Anonymous said...: You people and your guns.

Don't bring a knife to a gun fight :); 8/19/15, 12:24 PM
Nichevo said...: Maybe he meant this sabre.; 8/19/15, 12:58 PM
khesanh0802 said...: @ Drill Sgt. As I thought about my comment I realized it was in fact a gun on a tank. I'll be running around the barracks screaming that a tank has a gun until I drop.; 8/19/15, 7:16 PM