An Unbelievable Throw?

[kylejt]

"So ONE guy in the WHITE coat is your credible witness."

Yup. I know this guy, work that he does, and the people he's worked for. Trust me (or not) he knows what he's talking about.

Actually, it's an optical conclusion he's writing about. It's a little different, and probably outside the realm of thinking of the typical MLB player and some posters.

You believe what you want to. I've got no problem with that. We all know how hard baseball myths are to kill.



[Edited by kylejt on Mar 5th, 2006 at 12:57 PM]

[SAump]

Trust me, his theory has so many holes that its beginning to smell alot like Swiss cheese. I really hope not to offend, but to educate.

"This model has not been validated experimentally"

"Anyone can prove that a body moving in air goes the opposite direction of the deflected air, which conserves momentum."

"The principle of conservation of momentum requires that the ball have downward momentum, which makes it go down."

I don't want to take away from your friend's accomplishments. Afterall, he has already published this article in the American Scientist. I only wish some other American scientists would have been a little more skeptical before the article went public.

But how could he miss the location of the seperation points? One and four o'clock are way out of whack. Take a look at the streamline photo. A child would tell the seperation points lie at twelve and five oclock.

Why five and not six? LIFT!

Hey, isn't Roger throwing the two-seamer? That is one beautiful picture. I will save that article just for his picture.

[SAump]

"A good major league batter can distinguish the difference between these angles."

He's talking about 2.3 and 2.4 degrees of seperation. The difference in a tenth of a degree at such a relatively LOW angle is almost impossible to recognize. A critical flicker-fusion frequency validates my opinion. Don't believe me? Watch the second hand on a clock. It moves. Watch the minute hand on a clock. It appears to move over time. Watch the hour hand on a clock. It doesn't appear to move at all. One can only sense the change by keeping track over time of the old vs. new location in between the old vs new hour.

Hey that also validates my RISING fastball theory. The difference in a tenth of a degree at such a relatively LOW angle is almost impossible to recognize. One can only sense the change by keeping track of the old vs. new pitch location between the old 2-seam straight pitch vs new 4-seam RISING pitch. The difference on location as sworn by pitcher, catcher, batter and umpire describes the LIFT of a RISING fastball.

AND this my friends has already been experimentally validated throughout the last 100 years of baseball.




[Edited by SAump on Mar 5th, 2006 at 01:15 PM]

[greymule]

Obviously physics is involved, but aren't physicists accustomed to dealing with objects in a vacuum? Isn't the "rising fastball" question really more one of aerodynamics?

Anyone who has ever played wiffle ball (everybody on this forum, I'm sure) knows that a wiffle ball can rise on its way to the batter. And I would bet that nobody could make a 16-lb shotput rise. A baseball is somewhere in between. Does anyone doubt that a machine could be developed that could shoot a baseball through air and provide it with such spin that it would rise? It seems to me that the question is not whether it is possible, but whether a human being could do it.

[SAump]

"We all know how hard baseball myths are to kill."

You are defending a myth. One created for entertainment value because there is little scientific basis in your pseudo-scientific research as it aplies to our ATMOSPHERE^. Now come down from those clouds (gravity and SPIN) and take a deep breath of fresh AIR. Did you reach terminal velocity (120 mph or HIGHER) and feel a strong wind?

You have no WIND in your argument. You have no wind resistance. Then you have no HOOK, LINER, SINKER or RISER. All you have is gravity and SPIN. You incorrectly allow gravity and SPIN to supply the PRIMARY forces on a baseball. I have said, all along, that these are only SECONDARY forces.

The primary force must be supplied by the PITCHER. You fail to recognize a very strong HPG in the AIR passing around a 100 mph baseball. You fail to recognize qualities about the air you breath, both horizontally (humid sea-level) and vertically. You fail to recognize WIND, WIND resistance, and LIFT.

But you continue to defend the myth.

[kylejt]

It's fine that you don't understand this. Most people don't. You're not alone. It's OK, really.

http://www.usastats.com/Section58/Mar2003/wood.html

[GarthB]

Originally posted by greymule
A friend of mine is a professor of aeronautical engineering at Princeton University. I assume he would know the issues involved. I'm going to ask him and relay what he says.

I've now put this to five physicists including one at the Fermi National Accelarator Laboratory. All agreed that a pitched baseball cannot rise at the time it is near or crosses the plate.

It is obvious that we could have 500 physicists agree and SA would still not accept reality. Maybe he stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night.

[DG]

Originally posted by SAump
Does s/he like stockcar racing? Tell 'em that I once saw a stockcar RISE 10-12 feet through the air and tumble over and over at speeds of 180 mph. There was such a strong upward lift on the bottom of all cars that race officials had to adopt SAFETY requirements MANY years ago. Wings were required to provide a downward force to keep the car from RISING off the ground. The same thing is true for powerboats traveling at speeds of 100 mph. Now I want to know if a 5 ounce baseball with SEAMS passing through the heavy warm AIR I breath at sea-level in June at speeds of 100 mph also experiences a small RISE due to a well-known force called LIFT.

I saw a car get air under it and leave the track in the 1st turn at the ROCK many years ago. The turns are banked pretty good so it took another car bump to get wind under the car to make it leave the track. Wings provide lift for an airplane to fly. Spoilers help keep race cars on the track, although they will get up if air gets under them. NASCAR is a different subject entirely from a fastball that is thrown at a downward angle toward the plate, and once released can not accelerate, it can only slow down, and drop.

[briancurtin]

I could exercise my connection at Fermi as well, making it two people working for the US DoE that are physicists saying this can't happen, but Garth is still right. I need to try those Holiday Inn Express places.

id also like to point out that comparing a baseball to a boat or a car is one of the most ridiculous things ever.

[kylejt]

The only thing sillier is us arguing with him.

[TussAgee11]

Originally posted by DG

I saw a car get air under it and leave the track in the 1st turn at the ROCK many years ago. The turns are banked pretty good so it took another car bump to get wind under the car to make it leave the track. Wings provide lift for an airplane to fly. Spoilers help keep race cars on the track, although they will get up if air gets under them. NASCAR is a different subject entirely from a fastball that is thrown at a downward angle toward the plate, and once released can not accelerate, it can only slow down, and drop.

Yes, you are correct. NASCAR cars only flip when they are spun around backwards, causing air to be trapped underneath the rear of the car. This creates so much push that the air packs in under the rear of the car, and flips it. It has nothing to do with a fastball, total moot point.

[phillips.alex]

you are getting angles very, very wrong. The difference between a 2.3 and a 2.4 degree angle are huge, if you look from really far away. Let's start close. Assume we are on a unit circle (with diameter of 2 ft) For every 1 degree of seperation, there is a (pi*2)/360 difference at the edge of the circle. When the circumference moves to 121 ft (2x distance from mound to home plate. It is twice as far because we are pitching from the middle of the circle, not the edge, so we must assume that the edge of the circle is 60'6" away), this changes to (pi*121)/360, or roughly a little over a foot. divide that down to get a tenth of a degree, and we still have a very noticeable difference. Hardly noticeable? You may just be swinging in the dirt.

[phillips.alex]

i also forgot to mention how ridiculous this argument is, but i'll add my two cents. There are many optical illusions in real life. Think of looking down the blacktop when it is really hot out, seeing tall buildings as your line of sight is curved, etc. There are many things that generate lift. It may very well be possible for a human to generate this lift. So let me come to a conclusion: I will defend the rising fastball. I will also defend the laws of physics. Both are possible. Only one of the two happens every single time.

[mcrowder]

The first time this came up, I did my homework and presented it here, and SAump disgraced my state by just not getting it and insisting on bringing inappropriate calculations into the mix (LIFT??? That's embarrassingly stupid --- please SA, move across the Red River and raise the average IQ in both states).

Now I realize he's just a troll trying to stir stuff up. His entire argument is verbal and non-analytical. Go into a physics lab and tell them that something they know to be impossible is in fact possible, based on the word of MLB players, and you'll be laughed out of the joint (by the 2 out of 10 physicists that have a sense of humor).

Troll, Troll, Troll. Stop feeding him.

[jxt127]

From reading a document from a physicist it would take a backspin of 3600 rpm at 90mph to have a pitch rise. It's the magnus force and the best pitchers throw at 1800 rpm.

Besides theres been soooo much debate on this over the years that there would be conclusive video were it possible.

"Fed the fish it provided entertainment"