| Abstrakt: |
Stone Missiles Weapons Ballistics and trajectory Trajectory and ballistics War or arrow missiles have been used for thousands of years. Missiles with explosives can be traced back to China following the Song dynasty. Mathematical and technological advances have led to countless improvements in missile design, trajectory, range, and accuracy and have continually revolutionized warfare. Aristotle theorized on laws governing projectile motion, as did mathematicians like Leonhard Euler and Daniel Bernoulli, who derived or refined mathematical principles of projectile motion using geometry, calculus, and differential equations. In the nineteenth century, mathematicians Alfred Freenhill and Percy MacMahon worked on a missile trajectory model that related resistance to the cube of the velocity, suggested from experimental data. During World War I, mathematics took on an increasingly important role. John Littlewood created techniques to reduce the work required for accurate missile trajectory calculations, and Gilbert Bliss used the calculus of variations to account for variables like wind and the rotation of the Earth. During the 1950s, mathematician John von Neumann headed the committee that led to the development of U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles. During the space age, mathematicians made a breadth of contributions, like Evelyn Boyd Granville, who worked on the development of missile fuses at the National Bureau of Standards. |
