The Physics of Baseball

beatleadam writes "After seeing Randy Johnson of the Arizona Diamondbacks pitch a perfect game (coverage here), I searched Slashdot in the hopes of reading more about what the Slashdot readers thought of this feat of athleticism and science and to learn more about the physics of baseball (More information to be found here and here). As nothing was posted, I submit for your viewing pleasure a "course" in the Physics of Baseball and the subtle science that is pitching."

Extra reading

[gowen]

Try Robert Adair's seminal "The Physics Of Baseball". A really good read (and it got him appointed "Physicist to the National League") Oh and someone who can write that [oddball-mall.com]

Air pushed aside by the curve on top has to move fast to meet up with the air moving along the bottom

has no business teaching physics to anyone? Why would the air race to meet up with its previous neighbour at the other side. Do they have a hot date, or something.

Re:Forget baseball.

[mike_mgo]

You might be interested then in The Physics of Hockey by Alain Hache. I bought it last year and found it interesting. he covers the basics from skating and stopping, to slapshots, chechs and saves. I think he even covered some of the thermo for making an ice rink.

Re:A perfect game?

[BoomerSooner]

Perfect game means no one reached base. You could actually pitch a perfect game in 27 pitches, all first pitch hits. This is why pitch count doesn't matter.

Knuckleballers

[kalidasa]

Less on the physics than the effects of that physics, from the New Yorker [newyorker.com] last week; here's a general audience article on knuckleball physics [oddball-mall.com], an interview with Robert K. Adair [ajprint.net], and finally, another physicist, Joel Hollander [cooper.edu], who works on baseball: if you look at the master's theses list, you'll see one on the physics of pitching.

a book

[elrod]

Robert K. Adair's book "The Physics of Baseball" is a good source of information on this. Both the physics-geek and physics-neophyte can find interesting tidbits in it.

How to catch a fly ball

[kidgenius]

I read a newspaper article once about how outfielders catch fly-balls. Basically, the ball follows an arc in the air. It's parabolic (which is fairly obvious). The way a fielder judges how far or back they need to be to catch the ball is what is interesting. The fielder will move so the ball will always appear to stay in one spot (and just get larger), even while it is on its descent. As long as this apparent motion is kept, the ball should go right into the glove. If the ball appears to move down, the fielder must move forward. If the ball appears to move up, then the fielder needs to go back. If the fielder sees any curve to the path, then he/she needs to move to the sides to "straighten" out the path. A really interesting read, wish I could find a URL w/ it.

Re:Accelerating

[calebb]

For an object to accelerate, it's 'speed' does not need to change... only it's velocity needs to change! Velocity is a vector quantity, so it has both a direction and a rate of motion attached to it.

Therefore, an object can be moving at a constant speed, but as long as it's 'direction' is changing, it is accelerating.

So a satellite that's orbiting the earth at a constant speed, is constantly accelerating since it's direction is constantly changing.

Caleb

Re:How to catch a fly ball

[Jonny Royale]

http://www.public.asu.edu/~mmcbeath/mcbeath.resear ch/CatchFly/CatchFly.html

or

http://www.maa.org/mathland/mathtrek_10_14_02.ht ml

Re:How about...

[siffring]

I know that was a joke, but if you're really interested, there is a pretty good book discussing the economics of baseball: Moneyball [amazon.com] by Michael Lewis

Re:You mean *half* the physics of baseball

[no soup for you]

... was missing the trajectory (batting) half.

Actually, there was a lot of trajectory -- in perfect games the fielders are as much to congratulate as the pitcher. There are 27 outs in a game if you pitch the 9th inning. He did not have 27 strike outs; there was a majority of outs made by the batters hitting the ball

Re:Extra reading

[gowen]

I think airplane's work due the fact that boundary layers and the trailing edges shed wing vortices. Bernoulli's principle (aka the "principle of equal transit times"), which holds only in inviscid fluids (and thus utterly invalid in the presence of a boundary layer), is a convenient lie, told to people who don't have enough maths to understand the real reason.
Here is a pretty good explanation [fiu.edu] of the real reasons planes fly.

Re:One question

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know's on third.

here's the whole Abbott & Costello skit

Baseball Almanac [baseball-almanac.com]

There's a book on this subject

[mkoby]

Here's a book [amazon.com] on the subject.

When my father and I were playing (softball and little leauge respectivly) he bought an earlier copy of this book.

Re:Perfect games more common now than before

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah. Ryan had seven no-hitters, not seven perfect games. Nolan never had a perfecto (he walked too many -- 2795 in a very long career)

Re:A perfect game?

[paiute]

You can pitch a perfect game with no pitches thrown, for there are ways that the batter can be called out without a pitch being thrown: if he steps from one batter's box to the other when the pitcher is in position to pitch or if he attempts to use an illegal bat. 27 of those, and the pitcher is credited with a perfect game.

More on baseball physics

[mjheil]

Here at the American Institute of Physics, we love baseball. More specifically, our science writer Ben Stein loves the game, and has written several articles on it, including a statistical analysis of the chance of going to seven games [aip.org], why AL batters get beaned more often [aip.org], and a new way [aip.org] to determine under- and over-achieving teams.

Re:How about...

[Big Nasty]

If you don't want to buy a book, Doug Pappas' weblog [roadsidephotos.com] is a good place to start. He posts a lot of interesting (to some people) articles about the money side of baseball. And if you really want the player salaries look here [usatoday.com].

Re:How about...

[blackula]

Check out sabernomics [sabernomics.com].

Not exactly what you were talking about, but pretty neat nonetheless.