4 KAPOW / May 2014
Introduction to
Ballistics
What Is Ballistics?
What is ballistics? Ballistics is the science of the mechanics of launching, flight, behavior, and effects of projectiles, especially involving bullets, gravity bombs, and rockets. Ballistics was officially considered a part of science becuase of the book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, written in 1687, which created mathematical laws of motion and gravity in order to predict Parabolic Trajectories. Weapons involved in ballistics are considered projectiles. Projectiles are any object projected into space by force. They include balls, arrows, bullets, artillery shells, and rockets. Along with spears and arrows, the boomerang, founded in Australia, is one of the many original projectiles. The first weapons, stone-tipped spears, were retrieved from Sibudu Cave, South Africa over 10,000 years ago. Still today, numerous advances are being made in the science of ballistics. It is always evolving.
Lindsey Attolino