Tom Boucher explains function of electromagnetic railgun as students take notes.
The study of physics in Virginia’s high schools is not for the average student. The motion of objects in one-dimension, Issac Newton's three laws of motion, vector principles and operations, momentum change theorem and the laws of conservation of momentum, plus such principles as work, kinetic energy and potential energy, electricity, waves and the study of light—all explained in mathematic equations—require gifted and talented young minds.
Recently, an example of those gifted and talented young intellect came to Naval Support Facility Dahlgren as Washington and Lee High School (Montross, Va.) visited the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division to see a demonstration of its electromagnetic railgun.
Led by physics teacher Wes James, the seniors (plus one junior) seemed to especially enjoy the event as they peppered NSWCDD’s Tom Boucher, who hosted the tour at the railgun, with questions involving nearly every aspect of the Navy’s future weapon.
‘‘How far can this gun shoot?” asked one student.
‘‘How accurate will it be?” inquired another.
‘‘What kind of power will it have when the projectile hits something?” a third wanted to know.
The answers were greeted with muted ‘‘wows!” and ‘‘awesome!”
The young physicists also got to view a video of recent gun tests and examined the gun up close. Additionally, they witnessed a demonstration of a smaller model that was constructed at Virginia Tech—though it took several tries to get the model working properly. The demonstration suffered from an initial power supply malfunction but the glitch worked perfectly into what Boucher explained as the ‘‘purpose for Dahlgren.”
‘‘We are a research and testing facility,” he told the students, ‘‘and discovering things that don’t work right is how we do our job in developing things that do work right for the Navy. Our main purpose is to have any failures occur here rather than on a ship at sea...that is the main reason why we are here.”
The Washington and Lee tour also took in a bus ride around Dahlgren’s main range and housing area, where students also learned about the history of the development of large caliber naval rifles.
The high school visit was the second annual visit to Dahlgren. James pointed that his pupils get a dual credit from Rappahannock Community College as well as high school for taking the physics class.
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