Posts by Chris

Tim Worstall fails at math...

"We've got a possible range of nice to nasty of + 52 to – 95"

What you need to do is look at the extremes maximum benefit for minimum outlay and maximum outlay for minimal benefit. That gives us two sets of figures which are -

Good - £110 billion benefit - £30 billion cost = +£80 billion

Bad - £82 billion benefit - £205 billion cost = -£123 billion

Grey goo

"could be turned into a fearful strangelet soup"

It wouldn't be grey perchance?

Flames

The flames coming out the back are actually plasma caused by the intense heating of the slug.

10MJ is tiny, BAE already have a 32MJ railcannon-

http://www.dailytech.com/BAE+Sports+Most+Powerful+Railgun+Ever/article9791.htm

http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,160195,00.html

All you need is 3,000,000 amps to fire it :)