Re: (TFT) Re: TFT Digest V3 #1005

[Ray Rangel <ray.rangel@cox.net>]

This is, indeed, correct. The apparent energy decreases with the square of the distance when the energy is evenly distributed and incoherant (e.g. starlight). However, this is not true when the energy is directed in a single direction or is coherant (e.g. LASER light).

Thus the energy resulting from an asteriod which gets blown up by a charge set at its center would disipate pretty evenly and would rarify (on average) by the square of the distance from the center.

As a side note: the amount of energy from the explosion never really decreases. It simply becomes dispursed over a wider area. Thus less of the energy acts on an object which is further away.

---- Mark Tapley <mtapley@swri.edu> wrote: 
> At 20:46 -0400 4/28/08, TFT Digest wrote:
> >An explosion expands in a sphere so I would expect
> >it to decrease ~1/r^3.
> 
> The volume of a sphere does indeed go as 1/r^3, but the surface area, 
> along which the shock wave acts, goes as 1/r^2. I had thought the 
> latter was a better approximation, but I'm not sure about that. If 
> PvK is doing actual research, he'll be much better qualified to 
> answer than me.
> -- 
> 						- Mark, 210-379-4635
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