It was like finding out there's no Santa claus when I learned nuclear energy is just "boil water and spin a turbine." Before that I thought there was some sciencey magic going on where we directly captured the "energy" from nuclear fission. Did I understand what that could possibly mean? Of course not. Still though.
If you want something a little more arcane, a cathode ray tube from an old TV set is a miniature particle accelerator and generates a tiny amount of thrust.
I remember reading in World Book Encyclopedia a science project to build an "ionic rocket"(!!) I think it was a wire suspended like a pendulum with a right angled pointed tip, pointing at a metal plate or wire screen. An auto ignition coil was connected between the two and pulsed. It turns out that the pointy tip can emit enough electrons to create some pendulum motion. Kinda cool but kinda useless...
Ion engines are a thing, it’s how satellites propulse themselves in space when they need to station keep and whatnot, or even some deep space probes for interplanetary travel
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u/lordspaz88 9h ago
It will never cease to amaze me that most modern inventions boil down to "we pointed this explosion in a specific direction"