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Blending scientific fact and sports trivia, Robert Adair examines what a baseball or player in motion does-and why. How fast can a batted ball go? What effect do stitch patterns have on wind resistance? How far does a curve ball break? Who reaches first base faster after a bunt, a right- or left-handed batter? The answers are often surprising--and always illuminating. This newly revised third edition considers recent developments in the science of sport such as the neurophysiology of batting, bat vibration, and the character of the "sweet spot." Faster pitchers, longer hitters, and enclosed stadiums also get a good, hard scientific look to determine their effects on the game. Filled with anecdotes about famous players and incidents, The Physics of Baseball provides fans with fascinating insights into America's favorite pastime.… (more)
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The physics of a pitched ball is also covered in detail. Understanding this requires knowledge of turbulence, and differential forces on a moving object. Knowing this, it is possible to explain how a baseball can be made to curve, how a fastball hops and how a knuckle ball knuckles. Some of the most interesting results were:
*) A batted ball should only be able to travel at most 545 feet in standard meteorological conditions.
*) The contact between a baseball and a bat lasts approximately 1/1000th of a second.
*) A 10-mile per hour headwind will turn a 400-foot drive into a 370 foot one.
Each chapter ends with a collection of technical notes that extend the topic of the chapter. This material is where the mathematics gets the heaviest.
One of the most interesting aspects of the book is that none of the "common knowledge" accrued by baseball players was proven false. Curve balls do curve, and sometimes quite a bit. While a fast ball does not really hop, it does sink less than it otherwise would due to wind resistance, which to human experience, makes it appear to hop. I really enjoyed this book, as a mathematician it was fun to read the formulas that make the curve ball that I could never hit possible.