Friday, September 3, 2010

It's not magic, it's physics!

Step 1: Shave head

Step 2: Run really fast.

Step 3: Kick it really hard, in just the right way.

Result: Bend it like Roberto Carlos!

It's all a matter of the tradeoff between aerodynamics and gravity:

one can identify sports dominated by aerodynamics (table tennis, golf and tennis) and sports dominated by gravity (basketball and handball). In between, we find sports where both gravity and aerodynamics play a comparable role (soccer, volleyball and baseball). Indeed, in the first category of sports, the spin is systematically used, while it is not relevant in the second category, and it only appears occasionally in the third one, in order to produce surprising trajectories.

No comments:

Post a Comment