The Physics of Baseball

Alan Nathan, a physics professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign maintains a website devoted to the physics of baseball. In honor of the opening days of the 2009 Major League baseball season, Scientific American recently conducted an interview with him on this subject. An edited transcript of the interview is available on their website. Among the topics discussed are the trajectory of a batted ball:

Typically, if you want to hit a long fly ball, you want to put backspin on that ball. The so-called Magnus force on the spinning baseball will be upward for a ball with backspin, and basically it opposes gravity. It keeps the ball in the air longer so it travels farther. So this leads to batting strategies—you actually undercut the ball. You don't want to hit the ball head-on, which would give you sort of a line drive. You want to undercut it a bit, which gives it more of a vertical takeoff angle and also gives the ball backspin. And the backspin is essential if you want to hit a long fly ball.

On the other hand, if you do the opposite—if you hit on the topside of the ball—generally the ball goes down, so it's going to be a grounder, and it's going to have topspin on it. But topspin itself can lead to interesting things happening. Sometimes a batter can hit a sinking line drive; again, it's another hitting strategy. In this case the ball is hit as more of a line drive, but it's slightly topped, so the ball has topspin on it. Topspin makes the ball fall more rapidly, and that's what you might want to do for a line drive so it falls in front of the outfielder. So there are all sorts of hitting strategies that batters can employ, and I suspect that although they don't think of it maybe quite in these terms, they really do understand what it's all about.

And corked bats:

The idea of corking a bat is that you drill a hole through the barrel end of the bat—maybe a foot deep, maybe about an inch in diameter—and you backfill it with cork. The cork itself doesn't do anything other than hide the fact that you've done this illegal act. The idea is the following: with less weight of the bat at the head of the bat, in the barrel, you're able to swing the bat faster. But it's a trade-off. Because the business end of the bat has less weight, you can swing it faster, but it's less efficient at transferring energy to the ball. And so there's something of a controversy as to whether the net result is positive or negative from the point of view of the batter. My conclusion from the point of view of getting the highest batted ball speed, which is what you want if you want to hit the longest fly ball, is that it's a net loss for the batter. That is to say, what you gain in swing speed does not quite make up for what you lose in the efficiency in transferring energy.

So then you might ask, well, why do batters do this? There's actually a good reason for why they might do it. It's not to get the highest batted ball speed but to have the best bat control. So with less weight of the bat in the barrel, you're much more easily able to manipulate the bat, to get the bat into the strike zone quicker. Batters make the distinction between bat speed—how fast the bat is actually moving when it hits the ball—and bat quickness, which has more to do with the acceleration, the batter's ability to get the bat from where it is initially on his shoulder into the strike zone as quickly as possible. And that means the ability to be able to even change your swing in the middle of the swing, which happens once you get more information on where the ball is going to end up.

So whereas corking the bat very likely does not allow you to hit a longer home run, it might allow you to make good contact more often.

And why a knuckleball can be ridiculously difficult to hit:

The key to understanding the knuckleball is that if a ball were perfectly smooth, the air would flow over it in a fairly smooth fashion. But the stitching on the ball disrupts the flow of air, causing the ball to break. It's not at all the same effect as the effect due to the spinning baseball—it's different altogether. So the key to throwing a knuckleball is that if you throw a ball that's spinning, one way to think about it is that the spinning baseball is averaging over different seam orientations, so there's no net effect due to the air interacting with the seams. But if you throw the ball with almost no spin at all—maybe it rotates a half or even a quarter of a revolution on its way to home plate—then as the air moves over the ball, it's the interaction of the air with those seams that changes the character of the airflow, making it go from a nice, smooth flow to sort of a turbulent flow. That causes local pressure variations which make the ball break, and it breaks in a more or less unpredictable way.

It's really an interesting read and is worth a few minutes of your time. Now if he could only explain what it will take to put the Royals in contention...

Kenneth R. Miller @ KSU

Tomorrow (Thursday)at 7:00 p.m. Dr. Kenneth R. Miller will be giving a lecture at Kansas State University. The lecture, which is sponsored by K-State's Center for Understanding Origins, will focus on evolution and the "Intelligent Design" movement.

For the past 12 years, Dr. Miller has been on the front lines of the conflict between religion and evolution. In his 1999 book Finding Darwin's God, Miller (who is a devout Roman Catholic) made a compelling case for the idea that religious faith and scientific materialism can co-exist. Since then, he has been one of the most public voices speaking out in support of evolution, appearing on numerous programs and in countless places (including an appearance on Comedy Central's popular The Colbert Report). As the Brown Alumni Magazine put it in 2005:

Miller has become one of evolution's most visible defenders. Newsrooms call him up whenever a school board tries to undermine the teaching of evolution. When President Bush remarked in August (2005) that public schools should teach intelligent design along with evolution "so that people can understand what the debate is about," within hours NewsNight with Aaron Brown and The O'Reilly Factor had asked Miller to comment live on the president's statement. Today, as well as shows on ABC and NPR, were next in line. In addition, his best-selling high school biology textbook has been the focus of a federal court case in which a judge ordered the board of education of Georgia's second-largest school district to remove the creationist-inspired stickers they'd inserted in the book. Six months later, after the New York Times published an op-ed by Cardinal Christoph Schšnborn that seemed to challenge previous Vatican statements that evolution is compatible with Catholic doctrine, Miller, a practicing Roman Catholic, joined prominent scientists Lawrence Krauss and Francisco Ayala in publicly asking the Pope to clarify the Church's stance on evolution and to continue Pope John Paul II's legacy of support for science. And this fall (2005) Miller was the first witness in a high-profile Pennsylvania court case filed to prevent the Dover school board from requiring the in-class reading of a statement casting doubt on evolution's validity.

That landmark court case, Kitzmiller v. Dover, not only ruled that it was unconstitutional to require the reading of the Intelligent Design friendly statement, but also opined that Intelligent Design should not qualify as science, and therefor has no business in high school science classrooms.

Last year, Miller publish Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul, which specifically attacks the Intelligent Design movement and examines the danger that it poses to both science and society. (Coincidentally, that book begins with Dr. Miller reflecting on a trip several years ago to give a lecture at K-State.)

In February, Dr. Miller was presented with the 2008 Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology by the American Association for the Advancement of Science in recognition of "his sustained efforts and excellence in communicating evolutionary science." (NCSE)

Miller, along with Joseph Levine, is the author of one of the most popular high school biology textbooks in the United States. I have mentioned Dr. Miller a couple of times previously (here and here).

Productivity booster

This was posted on Freakonomics last week but I haven't gotten to it until today. I guess I'm a little slow...maybe that means I should spend more time browsing the Internet at work:

(If you're reading this at work)...you’re probably 9 percent more productive than your co-workers... That’s according to new research out of the University of Melbourne, which found that Workplace Internet Leisure Browsing (WILB) improves productivity by giving internet-centric workers a chance to refocus their minds between tasks. The increase is startling; workers who spend as much as 20 percent of their office time leisure browsing actually get more work done than workers who don’t.

I wonder if that applies to students at school as well...?

Daily Recap: Wednesday, 4/8

Early release day.

Anatomy and Physiology:
With just over a week to go with our rats, each group should be through the respiratory system...or at least close.

Biology:
Read textbook section 17.3 and complete a "deluxe Frayer model" for each of the six kingdoms. Worksheets for this are available in the classroom.

Name that "M"

Here's the full picture from last week:

And here's this week's mystery "m":

Election Results

I'm sure you've probably heard by now, but here are the results from yesterday's local elections:

1. Scott Hopson was elected mayor, defeating the incumbent candidate Tom Pyle.

2. Bill Whitten was elected to a second term as a city council member. The other seat was won by Tim Reazin.

3. Michael Kelso, Eric Votaw, and Keith Nowland won the three open seats on the USD 491 board of education.

Daily Recap: Tuesday, 4/7

Today is World Health Day. It's also local election day.

Anatomy and Physiology:
1. The new Physio-Phocus is now available either online or in the classroom. Make sure you pick one up.
2. Groups should be finished with the circulatory system and ready to move on to the respiratory system in their rat.

Biology:
We continued working on the animal classification posters that we started yesterday.

!!Don't forget that tomorrow is early release!!

The Hand of God?

This telescopic photo is (justifiably) generating some Internet buzz:From Stardate:

'Fingers' of hot gas around a dead star are passing energy to a distant gas cloud in this X-ray image from the orbiting Chandra X-Ray Observatory. The entire complex is powered by a neutron star -- the corpse of an exploded star. The neutron star, known by its catalog number, PSR B1509-58, is only a few miles in diameter, but several times as massive as the Sun. The neutron star is embedded in the bright blue knot at center, but is far too small to see. It spins rapidly and generates a titanic magnetic field. These processes energize wisps of gas, forming the hand-like structure around the gas. Some of the energy flows into the more-distant gas cloud, making it glow in X-rays as well. In this image, blue represents the most powerful X-rays, while red and orange are less powerful. The structure is about 17,000 light-years away, and spans 150 light-years.

The result of this is a gigantic blue celestial "hand" reaching up towards a beautiful red ball of glowing gas. Awesome.

I voted...and managed to screw it up

The instructions are pretty simple. Get a ballot, fill in the little circles next to the candidate(s) that you're voting for, then turn in your completed ballot.

I did that. I voted for one mayor. I voted for three school board members. I voted for three city council members. I filled in my circles and was very careful to color inside the lines. I checked and double checked that I had voted for the "right" people. I took my ballot up to the little machine. I made sure I properly inserted my ballot into the little machine. And that's when the machine--that little miracle of technology, that thing which reads my ballot and instantly makes sure my vote is counted, that modern day descendant of the old-school cardboard ballot box--told me that my ballot was "invalid". Invalid? That couldn't be...I had been so careful.

The now-not-so-smart machine asked me if I wanted my ballot back. Of course I did. That's MY ballot. That's MY chance to have a say in the local government. Give it back to me you stupid little machine. So I push the button and my ballot comes sliding back out to me. I double check circles, I recount my votes, I re-read the instructions...oh. Oops. Apparently, you're only allowed to vote for two city council candidates, not three. (If you refer to my post from yesterday, you'll see just how mixed up I was...)

Now, there's a part of me that thinks democracy would be a lot more fun if you could vote for as many (or as few) people as you want. If too many candidates get more than 50% of the vote, then they have to thumb-wrestle for it or something. Or maybe a "Billy Madison" style talent show. If too few get more than 50%, then you draw a random citizen's name out of a hat to fill any empty spots. But that's not how it works,so I had to take my ballot up to the nice little ladies working the front table, and politely explain to them why I'm too much of an idiot to follow simple directions. All this time, I'm having visions of hanging chads and disputed ballots...

In the end, I got it right. My original ballot was voided, I got a fresh new one, I filled in the correct number of circles (coloring inside the lines, of course), the lovely ladies working the table were more than patient and accommodating, and I cast my ballot for one mayor, two city council members, and three school board members.

This time, the little electronic "I'm-smarter-then-you-sucker" ballot box accepted my ballot and counted it. And with that, I took part in one of our greatest civic processes...and the great American democracy proved itself to be greater than my ineptitude.

NCAA Title Game (2nd half)

I'm not sure how much fun this will be, just counting down 20 minutes until Roy's Boys cut down another net. Like I said...UNC by 12...

15:00: (UNC 59-41)...MSU is trying to get something going, but Ty Lawson just broke a title game record with 8 steels.

...good to see Griffin get the Naismith
..."I Like Square Butts"...?
...Love the Guitar Hero Metallica commercial...(That means you've gotta put on some pants, pops)

12:15: (UNC 46-62) One gets the feeling the MSU is a big play or two away from making this a game.

12:00: (UNC 65-46) Nevermind...3 pointer by Danny Green (UNC)

...Google searching "Live blog title game"...
...this is how the pro's do it:

Update | 11:01 p.m. Perhaps the answer to that question is no. Danny Green drills a 3-pointer and North Carolina’s lead is back to 19.

Update | 10:56 p.m. With 12 minutes left, Michigan State has cut the lead to 16 points, 62-46. Can Izzo’s guys make it interesting?

Didn't I just say that?

11:00: (UNC 65-47) MSU is continuing to turn the ball over...

10:00: (UNC 68-50) Lawson's made free throws makes him the 3rd Tar Heel to score in double figures

8:45: (UNC 70-53) Izzo promised to shave his head at the end of the season if the Spartans won the Big 10 (which they did)

7:33: (UNC 72-53) Davis's field goal makes him the 4th UNC player in double figures

...Facebook status updates from KU folks:

...is wondering if anyone else out there wants NC to get blown out by 100 points tonight. Or at least for Roy to get hit in the head with a basketball really hard!
...Yes! But not looking like it is going to happen.
...Yes, yes, yes, yes! I thought that my mom and I were the ONLY people who would like to see Roy beaned with a basketball! It's so nice to know that we're not alone!!
...GO MSU! Down with Roy.
...anyone but UNC...

6:11: (UNC 74-59) All time record attendance at a championship game.

4:57: (UNC 76-63) Another athletic trainer moment as Lucious (MSU) goes down. He's got two of the Spartans' 6 3-pointers tonight.

4:46: (UNC 78-65) The lead's down to 13. Can they make a final run? (NC has scored only 23 points this half)

3:51: (UNC 80-65) Ty Lawson (UNC) 2-pointer and an offensive foul on Kalin Lucas (MSU). The 'Heels are keeping them at arms' length here.

...MSU has committed 20 turnovers to NC's 7

2:45: (UNC 82-65) Hansbrough has some time here while he shoots free throws to think about how happy he is to have come back for this season.

1:03: (UNC 87-70) Roy subs in the scrubs...count it down

...240 minutes of basketball played in the tournament by UNC...double-digit leads for 154 of those...trailed for only 10...

0:00: Final score UNC 89, MSU 72

Final four MVP is Wayne Ellington

Team Stat Comparison
	MICHIGAN STATE	NORTH CAROLINA
Points	70	87
FG Made-Attempted	21-52 (.404)	27-58 (.466)
3P Made-Attempted	7-23 (.304)	5-12 (.417)
FT Made-Attempted	21-29 (.724)	28-40 (.700)
Fouls (Tech/Flagrant)	28 (0/0)	22 (0/0)
Largest Lead	1	24

Game Leaders
	MICHIGAN STATE	NORTH CAROLINA
Points	G. Suton 17	T. Lawson 21
Rebounds	G. Suton 11	E. Davis 8
Assists	K. Lucas 7	T. Lawson 6
Steals	D. Green 1	T. Lawson 8
·

Halftime stargazing

I ran out at halftime of the game for some snacks and happened to look up. It's a clear night, so there's a great view of the stars. If you happened to look at the moon tonight, there's a very bright star just above and to the left of it. That "star" is actually Saturn. And really stands out since the light from the nearly-full moon washes out a lot of the dimmer stars around it.

Mr. Abel...one of our "Neighbors"

The Eudora News has a feature that they're calling "Neighbors". The gist of it is that they profile a different community member every week. Last week's profilee (is that a word?) was Mr. Abel. You can check it out here.

Q: How long have you lived in Eudora, and what brought you here?

A: This was my hometown and I had left, so this is my 13th year back. There was a job opening and I had an ill family member and this was the best place to be.

Q: What is the best advice you’ve ever been given?

A: Don’t take life too seriously.

Q: What is the biggest risk you’ve ever taken?

A: Going back to school and getting my master’s degree.

Q: What are three things people should know about you?

A: I’m a twin, I really enjoy sports and I’m a very spiritual person.

Q: What are three of your pet peeves?

A: I hate whiners, I don’t like winter and I don’t like clutter.

Q: When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A: Probably a professional athlete.

Q: What is your ideal vacation?

A: Going to the Teton Mountains.

Favorite things

Song: I don’t really listen music very much so I don’t have one.

Last good movie you saw: “Taken”

Book: “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can make a Big Difference” by Malcolm Gladwell

Food: Any kind of Chinese food

NCAA Title Game

Live blogging the NCAA title game...
(This will be updated throughout the night, or until I get bored of it or fall asleep.)

8:05: Trying to get Littlemagette to go to sleep. So far I'm not having much luck...
8:07: Interview with Roy Williams...
8:10: Listen in on Izzo's pep talk...
8:12: Littlemagette's out of bed again...
8:19: I don't think you can call a #2 seed with MSU's tradition a "giant killer"
8:22: Larry Bird and Magic Johnson...SWEET

FIRST HALF
17:00 first half: Littlemagette's out of bed again, and NC's starting the game on a run. By the way, I'm calling UNC by 12.

16:00: UNC's first double-digit lead (15-5)

14:00:UNC is the "epitome of spurtability"...didn't I just hear something about that on a Bud Light commercial? (UNC 22-7)

-Checking on Littlemagette...why won't this kid go to sleep? Daddy wants to watch the game...

-As a science guy, I understand that the sample size in this poll is too small to make the results valid...but it still makes me wonder how KU folk get off with calling themselves the best fans in the world.

11:15: UNC 29-11...no team has ever won the title by defeating 3 #1 seeds. MSU has already beaten two (Louisville and UConn).

10:15: UNC up by 20 (31-11)...MSU is 4 of 14 from the floor.

7:33: (UNC 38-18) 5 UNC players have scored as many or more points as MSU's top scorer...UNC outscoring MSU 20-4 in the paint

7:01: good athletic trainer moment as Raymar Morgan gets popped in the nose again

-I'm kind of digging the commercials for Terminator 4
-Littlemagette's asleep!

4:45: (UNC 46-22) MSU has turned it over 11 times...Ellington has 15 for UNC

1:45: (UNC 51-30)

Halftime: UNC 55-34...Most points scored in the first half by a team in championship game history...largest halftime lead in championship game history

TEAM STATS SUMMARY
	MICHIGAN STATE	NORTH CAROLINA
Points	34	55
Field Goals	12-27 (44.4%)	18-34 (52.9%)
Free Throws	6-9 (66.7%)	15-19 (78.9%)
3-pointers	4-10 (40.0%)	4-9 (44.4%)
Personal Fouls	13	9

200th Post!

Don't look now, but the last post was the 200th to this blog! If you're wondering what to get your favorite science-teacher-blogger-guy on such an occasion, I'll offer you this suggestion (although I'd prefer the V8 model):

Daily Recap: Monday, 4/6

Anatomy and Physiology:
We're continuing our rat unit. Groups should be through the muscular and digestive system by now and moving on to the circulatory (cardiovascular) system. Please make sure you get any scores that are completed to me so that I can record them in PowerSchool. Oh, and the new Physio-Phocus is available as well.

Biology:
We are working in small groups to construct classification posters using the field guide pages that were turned in last week. We have over 20 animals that we've classified into phyla, classes, orders, family, genera, and species. When the posters are completed, we'll be able to draw conclusions about which animals or groups of animals are more closely related.

Tomorrow is Election Day!

*Updated below
Voters in Eudora will be asked tomorrow to cast their vote for mayor, city council, and school board members. While the turnout for local elections is typically very low, I would encourage anyone who is eligible and registered to take the time to exercise this civic duty.

Tom Pyle, who is currently serving as mayor, will be running for re-election to that office against Jean Farmer and Scott Hopson. The mayor serves a four year term.

Three Two seats on the city council are up for grabs among five candidates. Bill Whitten is the only incumbent running for re-election in this race, and he will be challenged by Brian Nyp, Tim Reazin, Tonya Summers, and Mike Warner. The three two winning candidates will join the three board members elected two years ago to form the six-member five-member city council. Terms for this board are four years.

As in the city council race, there There are three open seats up for grabs on the local school board. The five candidates for these three seats are Daniel Dickerson, Michael Kelso, Keith Nowland, Eric Votaw, and Mike Warner. None of the three incumbents are seeking re-election. As with the city council, the The three winners of this election will join the three four board members elected in 2007 to form a six seven member board. School board terms are also four years in length.

Last week, the Eudora Chamber of Commerce hosted candidate forums for each of the three races. The Eudora News wrote stories summarizing the school board, city council, and mayoral races.

*Update: The six seats on the city council are composed of 5 members and the mayor. This year, two members and the mayor are up for election to four year terms. I was confused...but I think I've got it figured out now.

Why people swear

Dr. John Grohol over at PsychCentral summarizes a new study examining why people swear. (Hat tip, once again, to Andrew Sullivan.)

Virtually all people swear, and people swear pretty consistently throughout their lifetime — from the moment they can speak to the day they die. Swearing is almost a universal constant in most people’s lives. Research, according to (the study's author Timothy) Jay, has shown we swear on average from 0.3% to 0.7% of the time — a tiny but significant percentage of our overall speech (frequently-used personal pronouns occur at approximately 1.0% rate in speech). Swearing is more common than you might think...(and) is not just for the uneducated or people of a lower socioeconomic class — it knows no social boundaries in its expression.

My executive summary would be that we swear for a variety of reasons in a variety of situations. Swearing can inject an emotion into conversation, or can be used to make a foreceful point. Swearing can also be used to express a high degree of emotion (good or bad). And while swearing may often be socially offensive, the goals achieved by swearing may occasionally be beneficial, such as when it is used as an emotional release or in the place of physical violence.

That covers the "who and why" of swearing, but what about the "what and when"?

We make choices about which word to use depending upon the company we’re in, and what our relationship is to that company, as well as the social setting. We’re more apt to use less offensive terms in mixed company or in settings where more offensive swear words might result in recrimination (such as work)*. For instance, people are more comfortable and are more likely to use technical terms for sexual references in mixed crowds, and to reserve the taboo words for same sex crowds or with their sexual partner. Most people feel uncomfortable saying, “F--k” in a business or public crowd, instead falling back on less offensive words like, “Damnit.”

The article also mentions that swearing is a normal part of language development as we learn what words are appropriate in what circumstances, and what words may be tabboo in all.

The author of the original study compares swearing to using the horn of your car in that it can be used for a variety of different reasons. I would add that, like a "honk" on a car horn, swearing exists on a continuum from benign to inappropriately aggressive.

*or school...

iPod Shuffle

Congratulations to Metallica for their induction this weekend into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.