How does the silencer of a gun work?
It is amazing that anything is able to silence a gun, but gun silencers actually work on a very simple principle. Imagine a balloon. If you pop a balloon with a pin, it will make a loud noise. But if you were to untie the end of the balloon and let the air out slowly, you could pop it making very little noise. That is the basic idea behind a gun silencer. A gun silencer quiets pressurized gas behind the bullet. To fire a bullet from a gun, gunpowder is ignited behind the bullet. The gunpowder creates a high-pressure pulse of hot gas. The pressure of the gas forces the bullet down the barrel of the gun. When the bullet exits the end of the barrel, it is like uncorking a bottle. The pressure behind the bullet is immense, however — on the order of 3,000 pounds per square inch (psi) — so the POP that the gun makes as it is uncorked is extremely loud. A bullet that travels at supersonic speeds cannot be silenced because the bullet creates its own little sonic boom as it travels. Many high
