The optical illusion of a curveball

His daddy could, 'tis true. So could his granddaddy, who batted clean-up while he was at Yale.

 

Doesn't say in there anywhere that the ball doesn't curve. Just that the curve is more gradual than what our eyes percieve it to be. I can't see how anyone could argue the ball doesn't curve. Like buck said:

 

Prescott played for Yale, too? I thought just GHWB did. He was a first baseman and team captain in the late 1940s.

 

Yep.....nice picture of GHWB with the Babe.

George Plimpton wrote this in SI in December 1988:

No President, however, can match Bush's absorption in sports, not to mention his sporting heritage. His mother, Dorothy, was a fine tennis player and a fierce competitor; his father, Prescott, who represented Connecticut in the U.S. Senate from 1952 to '63, hit cleanup on the 1917 Yale baseball team and played on the golf team.

http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1068134/index.htm

But, holy crap, I thought Barbara was tough until I read this about Poppy's momma:

"The day her first son, Prescott, was born, she hit a home run in a Softball game at Kennebunkport, and after she circled the bases she announced it was time to go to the hospital. Pressy weighed 10 pounds."

 

This could get almost existentially deep, but I'm not sure the same thing is happening. What happens with aircraft wings and helicopter blades is explained under Bernoulli's Principle, which is along these lines: The top of the wing, because of the way it is shaped, is longer from front to back than the bottom. But the top and the bottom are traveling through air molecules at the same speed, and the air molecules, in simple terms, spread out; the top molecules move faster than the bottom ones. The result is lower air density above the wing, and the higher air pressure below the wing creates lift.

I don't think the same thing is happening in a spinning baseball; the top half of the ball has the same dimensions as the bottom half. I think the curvature of a thrown baseball has more to do with internal rotational momentum than it does with external air density. This article attempts to explain it using something called Magnus Force: http://webusers.npl.illinois.edu/~a-nathan/pob/AJPFeb08.pdf. It may require advance medication with ibuprofen though.

 

George W. Bush is Jesus?

 

Jesus. He kept his hands back.

 

I'm directly behind the tree and he's 60 feet away? I'll take that bet.

 

Your tree, my good man.

 

Nobody ever said how big the tree was.

 

The top and bottom half of airfoils aren't necessarily differently shaped. Only asymmetrical airfoils have different shapes. Many aircraft still use symmetrical wings/rotors/props.

When the seams on a baseball rotate to the top, a difference of pressure HAS to be created because a new shape, or air foil, is presented for the air molecules to act upon.

Maybe not. That's just the way I look at it.

 

If I stand sideways and he has to throw breaking stuff, I think I'd still take my chances if I had something to gain by winning.