Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Would Captain Kirk's Anti-Gorn Cannon Actually Work?

gorn


In the episode "Arena" of the original Star Trek series, Captain Kirk builds a cannon out of a bamboo log, diamonds, coal, saltpeter, and sulfur. Would it actually have worked? In a few days, Mythbusters will debut an episode which tests the hypothesis. Below, you can view the promo:



Video Link via Topless Robot

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Google "a wooden mortar was constructed" for an actual Civil War experiment along these lines.

Divers and Sundry said...

Quit messin' with my myths! Is nothing sacred???

James R. Rummel said...

Would it work? Don't see why not...

Anonymous said...

"Why not" is breech pressure; the wooden mortar mentioned above was made of a 2.5-foot-thick white oak tree, but burst on its first full-charge shot.

John said...

I would question the durability of bamboo.

Theoretically, it should work. But I should try it before stating so with certainty.