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The physics behind a catapult
The science of catapults
The science of catapults
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Catapults
A catapult is a tool or weapon used first by the people of Jeruselum to launch an object a large distance. The catapult has been used since ancient times and is still known today as one of the most effective weapons in war. The word catapult comes from 2 greek words “kata” meaning downward and “pultos” meaning a small circular battle shield. Together the word katapultos was taken to mean “shield piercer”. The earliest catapults were used under the rule of King Uzziah of Jerusalem. “In Jerusalem he made machines designed by skillful men for use on the towers and on the corner defenses to shoot arrows and hurl large stones.” 2 Chronicles 26:15. Catapults were also used by the people in Nimrud (now known as Iraq) in the 9th century B.C. Many people think that Greeks and Romans were the first people to build and use catapults, but as i told you before they were used first by the people of
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In Greece the first catapults were made while trying to increase the range and puncture power of missiles by making the bow which flung the missiles stronger.The Dionysius the Elder of Syracuse was the one to invent the catapult in 400 B.C.E.The historian Diodorus Siculus described the invention of the arrow firing catapult (katapeltikon) by the Greek task force in 399 BC. This weapon was soon used as a war weapon against Motya (397 BC). Castles and fortified walled cities were extremely common during these earlier times. Catapults were a key weapon against them. As well as breaking cities walls catapults were used to shoot things inside the
Question 5: “Texts construct characters who represent the best qualities in human nature, as well as those who represent the worst.” Discuss how at least ONE character is constructed in a text you have read or viewed. (Sem 2, 2016)
The roots of the machine go back to at least the fifth century B.C. in China. In its most primitive form, it consisted of a pivoted beam with a sling at one end and ropes at the other. A stone would be placed in the sling and a team of men would haul the ropes, swinging the beam up into the air”1.
Another type of catapult is the Onager. Onagers were used right up to the middle ages with the Trebuchet, when gunpowder and the Cannon were invented and eventually replaced the catapults.
According to Chevedden et al., (2002) the Latin word for trebuchet was “ingenium” and those who designed, made and used them were called inginators. These early engineers kept modifying the trebuchet to increase the range and impact force. One of the improvements engineers made was varying the length of the sling ropes so the shot left the machine at a ? angle of 45 degrees to the vertical (shown in the figure above), which produces the longest trajectory (Chevedden et al.,
Trebuchets earned a reputation for being much more accurate and precise than their onager and catapult counterparts. Not only was this accuracy a benefit, but being based on rotational motion and leverage rather than torsion (spring power) and lacking in a throwing arm stop, the trebuchet proved a much safer alternative for the personnel operating it. Onagers and Mangonels would literally explode on occasion when the torsion proved too great or a crack developed in the throwing arm due to the rapid stops it experienced.
Before the days of gunpowder, the military used large timber machines to hurl rocks, arrows and flaming barrels of tar at and into castles and forts. In ancient times, in order to prevent attacks from invaders, forts and castles are built for protection. These castles and forts had very strong walls and were sometimes placed high on top of a hill or such. Therefore, people within the military often build machines and structures to aid in attacking castles. These machines were called catapults, which didn’t use explosives like today’s military weapons, instead they used energy which was stored in bent timber and sinew, twisted ropes or heavy weights. A catapult is a machine that initially stores energy and then releases energy in order to fire a projectile. In simple terms, it is a device that is used to hurl an object to a further distance. In order to be classified as a catapult, the machine generally has to be larger than an average person, which logically makes it difficult for the said person to carry. The first catapults were early
The crossbow is a weapon of antiquity. There is plausible evidence that the Chinese developed the weapon as early as 1500 BC Surviving examples exist in China from as far back as the third century BC These Han dynasty relics display a great deal of sophistication. The lock (chi) is comprised of a cast bronze box which holds a rotating nut and a two-lever seer and trigger that locks the release in a set position. Roman soldiers captured and ransomed in Sogdiana in central Asia in the first decades of modern reckoning are credited with bringing the technology of the crossbow to the West.
Crossbows are a highly effective weapon for hunting and war even in today's standards. The first records of crossbows are from China in the 6th century BC. The knowledge then spreads slowly to the west into Europe during the time of the Roman Empire, the greatest empire of all times. The crossbow remained the favored weapon of war and hunting in Rome until the 15th century when gunpowder was also introduced from China.
...e went into motion. Possible projectiles of the trebuchet were living prisoners, jugs of Greek fire, rocks, and animals. Another large weapon of siege was used primarily in storms, the battering ram. In its early stages, the ram was no more than a hefty beam with a mass of metal attached to the end. Men would hoist the cumbersome boom onto their shoulders and run into a wall or door as many times as needed until the surface under attack gave way. In the Middle Ages, it was developed into more of a machine, for the ram hung from the center of a tent under which the men operating the ram could hide. The ram could be swung like a pendulum much more easily than having to constantly run back and forth. Also, castle guards often poured hot oil or other things onto the ram and its engineers. The tent, which was on wheels, protected the men and the battering ram as well.
The history of a trebuchet is long and complex seeing as civilizations have struggled to properly maintain records throughout time. The term trebuchet comes from the French word “trebucher”, which means “to throw over”, or “to fall”. The war machine was called “Ingemium” in England, called so as it was Latin for “ingenious”. This ancient form of the trebuchet is called a traction trebuchet. Instead of utilizing a weight and gravity as modern ones do, this structure required man power to pull the arm of down in order to then release a projectile. These projectiles would then incessantly bombard city and castle walls. The trebuchet would, over many years, come to dominate battlefields in the place of catapults and
The purpose of the projectile lab is to test the validity of the law of conservation of energy. The application of this law to our everyday lives is a surprisingly complicated process. Conservation of energy states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but that it can be transferred from one form to another. Consider the projectile lab from document A that this essay is based upon. In an ideal experiment, the projectile is isolated from everything except the gravitational field. In this case, the only force acting on the particle is gravity and there are only two forms of energy that are of interest: the energy of the particle due to its motion (defined as kinetic
For using in siege warfare, people believe that catapult history began probably in the 300s AD.
Bombs and shells changed the scenery again. Missiles, so far generating their destructive forces solely from their momentum of mass and velocity, now carried explosive material to the target. The old flaming arrows already followed this principle.
Here, we can use the vectors to use the Pythagorean Theorem, a2 + b2 = c2, to find the speed and angle of the object, which was used in previous equations.
A weapon, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is defined as “a thing designed or used to inflict bodily harm or physical damage”. Due to the fact that humans have always fought and killed each other, it is hard to determine an exact time in which weapons were first used, but according to ancient cave paintings dating back from 10,000 to 5,000 BC weapons such as bows were used. Over centuries weapons steadily advanced until the 16th century when guns were invented. In the beginning of the 19th century, a man by the name of Sir William Congreve engineered the first rocket used in warfare. The rocket was not a very good one, it lacked accuracy, but because of a need to have the best and most powerful weapon, improvements and other designs were created which lead to the first super weapons being built.