if by chance, would would happen if 2 bullets collide?

Question

if by chance (1 in a billion), 2 people were to fire a bullet each from the same gun and same type bullet, at the same exact time, each 100 feet away facing eachother, what would happen if the bullets were to collide point on point?

Answer 1

Depends on speed and how they hit.
Slow speed is probably an elastic collision, like Newton's Cradle, they might bounce back at same speed !!! if they hit exactly head on. If not head on, then like two billiard balls. As mentioned above, they would bounce off with a 90 degree angle between them.

At high speed a completely inelastic collision like two cars head on. All that kinetic energy would go mainly into heat and maybe melt the two bullets, fusing them into one object, or molten bits might go flying off. If they don't hit head on then they will still lose kinetic energy to heat, etc but momentum will be conserved in a "sticky" collision.

In between speeds could be complicated to predict, so much physics involved. You need a scientist from the pentagon, I'm sure they have run all these types of simulations in weapons testing on a supercomputer. Very complicated with shock waves and matter behaving funny under high stress, etc. And we haven't even included spin and angular momentum!!

Answer 2

well, if the bullets had the same force and the exact same size etc...im guessing the bullets would just cancel each other out and fall where they meet.

of Course the bullets would smash each other in a little like when cars collide,

just a guess

Answer 3

Newton's third law of motion is naturally applied to collisions between two objects. In a collision between two objects, both objects experience forces which are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction. Such forces cause one object to speed up (gain momentum) and the other object to slow down (lose momentum). According to Newton's third law, the forces on the two objects are equal in magnitude. While the forces are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction, the acceleration of the objects are not necessarily equal in magnitude. In accord with Newton's second law of motion, the acceleration of an object is dependent upon both force and mass. Thus, if the colliding objects have unequal mass, they will have unequal accelerations as a result of the contact force which results during the collision.

Answer 4

Depending on the bullet one of two things would happen.
1) They would deform as they bounce off each other and go backwards.

2) They would fragment and go forward at swveral angles that are at an angle less than 90 egrees from the original path.

Answer 5

They did this on mythbusters... If I remember correctly, the bullets did fuse together.

Answer 6

They might fuse or explode.
Or get together to have anal sex
or probably just collide and fall down

Answer 7

It would result in a rift in the time-space continuum unleashing a chain reaction that would nullify all of our existences.

Answer 8

if the bullets were perfectly symmetrical and uniform, they would probably fuse together

Answer 9

adding their vectors, I guess the pieces would explode laterally.

Answer 10

Think in terms of billiard balls!