Coils, Codes and Comets: My Attempts to Partially Understand Some Particular Aspects of Hypervelocity Impacts

Abstract

At the time of this writing in 2019, I have been studying hypervelocity impacts for about 34 years. I attended my first Hypervelocity Impact Symposium in 1992. In this paper, I attempt to show what I’ve been up to all this time but also show some of the things I’ve learned along the way. I’ve singled out three topics that stand out in my mind as milestones in my career: the impact of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter in 1994, the development of adaptive mesh refinement for the CTH hydrocode in 1998-2001 and my ongoing studies of hypervelocity impact-generated magnetic fields from 1985 to the present day.