Behind the ballistics of the 'explosive' squirting cucumber
1–10 of 14 posts
Re: Behind the ballistics of the 'explosive' squirting cucumber
#2Great capture and it's funny to read the "possible applications" section when you know humans just love watching slow motion exploding things.
Re: Behind the ballistics of the 'explosive' squirting cucumber
#3Wild how evolution landed on 53° as the ideal launch angle. Nature’s own ballistics optimization.
Re: Behind the ballistics of the 'explosive' squirting cucumber
#4> speeds up to 29 miles per hour and reach shooting distances up to 12 meters.
My brain hurts.
But I learned a new word: mucilaginous.
Re: Behind the ballistics of the 'explosive' squirting cucumber
#5> speeds up to 29 miles per hour and reach shooting distances up to 12 meters. My brain hurts. But I learned a new word: mucilaginous.
This reminded me of the South American "dynamite tree" (Hura crepitans, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hura_crepitans ), which wikipedia says launches seeds from its exploding fruits at 160 mph, up to 100 ft away! A pretty menacing tree actually, its trunk covered in huge thorns and it has a poisonous sap.
Re: Behind the ballistics of the 'explosive' squirting cucumber
#6Wild how evolution landed on 53° as the ideal launch angle. Nature’s own ballistics optimization.
53° is very close to a 3-4-5 triangle
Re: Behind the ballistics of the 'explosive' squirting cucumber
#7Re: Behind the ballistics of the 'explosive' squirting cucumber
#8> speeds up to 29 miles per hour and reach shooting distances up to 12 meters. My brain hurts. But I learned a new word: mucilaginous.
This reminded me of the South American "dynamite tree" (Hura crepitans, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hura_crepitans ), which wikipedia says launches seeds from its exploding fruits at 160 mph, up to 100 ft away! A pretty menacing tree actually, its trunk covered in huge thorns and it has a poisonous sap.
Wow. We really have it good considering most trees don't fire projectiles at us.
Re: Behind the ballistics of the 'explosive' squirting cucumber
#9[deleted]
Re: Behind the ballistics of the 'explosive' squirting cucumber
#10Wild how evolution landed on 53° as the ideal launch angle. Nature’s own ballistics optimization.
> The experiments also revealed that the fruit stem straightens up during ripening, creating an average 53° angle that is close to the theoretical perfect angle of 50° that would maximize shooting distance.
I recall from school that distance is maximized for a ballistic path when the angle is 45°. See e.g. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/football-projecti...
Did someone get confused while writing this article or is there some reason why the optimal angle would be different in this situation?