5000 fps Camera Reveals the Physics of Baseball 144
concealment sends this quote from an article at The Physics of Baseball "This clip from Game 4 shows Marco Scutaro hitting the ball right near the tip of the barrel. The amplitude of the resulting vibration is so large that the bat breaks and the ball weakly dribbles off the bat. Note that the bat splinters toward the pitcher. The reason is that when the ball hits the barrel tip, the barrel of the bat bends backward toward the catcher and the center of the bat bulges forward toward the pitcher. That is the natural shape of the fundamental vibrational mode of the bat. Since the fracture occurs near the center which is bulging outward, that is how the bat splinters, as the wood fibers on the pitcher side of the bat are stretched to the breaking point. If the ball had impacted the bat near the center, the center would have bulged toward the catcher, as in the Yadier Molina clip. Had the vibrational amplitude been strong enough in the Molina case, the bat would have splintered toward the catcher."
First (Score:5, Funny)
First pitch!
Isn't the game long enough already? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Isn't the game long enough already? (Score:1, Funny)
Baseball: (n) A game invented by people who thought cricket was too boring, but who then somehow managed to create a game that was just as long, just as involved, just as complex, and just as boring.
Relativistic Baseball (Score:4, Funny)
Would love to see some slow-mo pics of this, but I think we need more than 5000fps to see it:
http://what-if.xkcd.com/1/ [xkcd.com]
Re:Isn't the game long enough already? (Score:5, Funny)
baseball, even more boring than fucking golf.
Regular golf is indeed boring..... ......but this variation you speak of .... tell me more about this "fucking golf". It sounds like an intriguing sport.
Is it televised?
Re:Isn't the game long enough already? (Score:3, Funny)
Yea, I think it's called C-SPAN.
Could not use the Yankees (Score:5, Funny)