Re: pinhole Physics lesson?

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From: Paul Doherty (pauld@exploratorium.edu)
Date: Tue Apr 17 2001 - 09:24:34 PDT 

Message-Id: <l03110704b7021d99bc7d@[192.174.2.173]>
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 09:24:34 -0700
From: Paul Doherty <pauld@exploratorium.edu>
Subject: Re: pinhole Physics lesson?

Hi Pinholers

Consider dropping a baseball.
The higher you drop it from the faster it hits the ground and the higher it
bounces.

Translated into velocity, the faster it hits the ground the faster it
bounces up off the ground.

The same thing goes for bats.
The bat is much more massive than the ball.
the faster the ball hits the bat, the faster it bounces off the bat.

For another example throw a ball against a brick building.
Throw it slowly it bounces off slowly, throw it fast it bounces off fast.

The ratio of the velocity after the collision to the velocity before the
collision is called the coefficient of restitution.

So the announcer is correct, the faster the ball is pitched the farther it
goes after colliding with the bat.

Paul D

Paul "But it is more complicated than that!" Doherty,
Senior Staff Scientist, The Exploratorium.
pauld@exploratorium.edu, www.exo.net/~pauld

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