What the hell exactly is going on here? I’ve talked about the machine I have for some time now but not fully explained what it is exactly that’s going on and why it’s such a bitch.
For starters, let’s recap how they work: For a given accelerator magnet, there is a wire wound many times around the barrel. When an electric current is passed through that wire, it is literally electrons circling the barrel. By the right hand rule, when an electron is moving, it creates a magnetic field. Because the wire is wound around the barrel, it creates that strong magnetic field inside the barrel itself.
If there happens to be a piece of iron in the barrel, the atoms within the iron will align themselves with the magnetic field and strengthen it. Now the wire and the iron are both acting as magnets and they will attract each other.
In an accelerator, the machine will turn on power to a given coil when the projectile is near that coil. It will pull the projectile into its center. Once the projectile reaches that center, it will turn off and allow the projectile to continue onwards.
Many of these magnets can be lined up where each one imparts a certain amount of energy on the projectile. Since there is a set force between the coil and the projectile and the projectile travels a set distance to reach the center of the coil, the work done (W = F*D) is a constant. Thus, every subsequent accelerating magnet imparts the same amount of energy on the projectile as did the first regardless of how fast the projectile is moving.
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