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xkcd #3047: Rotary Tool (xkcd.com)

submitted 6 days ago by [email protected] to c/xkcd

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It was great until my thumb slipped and I accidentally launched my telescope into the air at Mach 8.

https://explainxkcd.com/3047/

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Big centrifuges are quite scary. Think of how much mass they are moving at those speeds. In comparison, a small drillbit turbine being rotated by compressed air seems less scary.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

The scariest lab centrifuge i've personally seen went to something like 100k rpm, and 800,000 g. It's basically a cartoon safe with a piece of lab equipment inside, because when something fails at 800,000 times the force of gravity, it's going to end up outside the city borders, or inside the next building over.