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The Peculiar Physics Of The Wiffle Ball
Last edited Sat Apr 16, 2022, 09:19 AM - Edit history (1)
https://www.npr.org/2022/03/30/1089728135/the-peculiar-physics-of-the-wiffle-ball(NPR - 13 minute audio at link)
The Peculiar Physics Of The Wiffle Ball
Short Wave
March 31, 202212:10 AM ET
EMILY KWONG
REBECCA RAMIREZ
Shall we play a game - of Wiffle Ball? Invented in 1953, this lightweight alternative to a baseball is perfectly suited for back yard romping. The design of the Wiffle ball guarantees that you don't need a strong arm to throw a variety of pitches.
But how does that happen? Jenn Stroud Rossman, mechanical engineering professor at Lafayette College, tells Emily Kwong and Maddie Sofia about the surprising science behind the Wiffle ball's wicked curve.
You can learn more about Jenn Stroud Rossmann's work on Wiffle balls here.
[...]
Short Wave
March 31, 202212:10 AM ET
EMILY KWONG
REBECCA RAMIREZ
Shall we play a game - of Wiffle Ball? Invented in 1953, this lightweight alternative to a baseball is perfectly suited for back yard romping. The design of the Wiffle ball guarantees that you don't need a strong arm to throw a variety of pitches.
But how does that happen? Jenn Stroud Rossman, mechanical engineering professor at Lafayette College, tells Emily Kwong and Maddie Sofia about the surprising science behind the Wiffle ball's wicked curve.
You can learn more about Jenn Stroud Rossmann's work on Wiffle balls here.
[...]
=================================================================
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/09/wiffle-ball-physics/539982/
The Contentious Physics of Wiffle Ball
An engineer sheds light on the ball’s much-debated curve. An Object Lesson.
By Jenn Stroud Rossmann
A player at bat strikes out while a Wiffle ball rests in the catcher's mitt.
The 1991 World Wiffle Ball Championships (Susan Walsh / AP)
September 15, 2017
Wiffle ball is a variant of baseball played with a plastic perforated ball. Eight three-quarter-inch, oblong holes cover half the ball’s surface area, while the other hemisphere is uninterrupted. Originally designed to relieve the arm of a young baseball pitcher (the son of its inventor, David N. Mullany), the ball achieves a curving trajectory without requiring the pitcher to impart spin or hurl at top speed. Each ball is packaged with instructions for how to release it in order to achieve various effects—with the perforations up for a straight ball, toward the pitcher’s thumb for a curve, and toward the outer fingers for a slider.
The inventor’s grandsons still run the family enterprise, with a product unchanged since its 1953 launch. Their dad, the pitcher for whom the ball was designed, told The Atlantic in 2002 that the Mullany family believed cutting the holes might create a “weight imbalance” that would cause the ball to curve. To this day, the company insists, “we don’t know exactly why it works—it just does!”
That folksy answer is charming, but a scientific one can foster even greater admiration for this curious ball and the sport that makes use of it.
* * *
Before Wiffle ball, uncertainty over the baseball curveball motivated investigation from both the media and the scientific community. Life magazine commissioned photographic studies of curve balls in 1941, to determine whether the phenomenon was real or an optical illusion. The magazine’s editors concluded it was illusory, enraging pitchers of the era.
[...]
An engineer sheds light on the ball’s much-debated curve. An Object Lesson.
By Jenn Stroud Rossmann
A player at bat strikes out while a Wiffle ball rests in the catcher's mitt.
The 1991 World Wiffle Ball Championships (Susan Walsh / AP)
September 15, 2017
Wiffle ball is a variant of baseball played with a plastic perforated ball. Eight three-quarter-inch, oblong holes cover half the ball’s surface area, while the other hemisphere is uninterrupted. Originally designed to relieve the arm of a young baseball pitcher (the son of its inventor, David N. Mullany), the ball achieves a curving trajectory without requiring the pitcher to impart spin or hurl at top speed. Each ball is packaged with instructions for how to release it in order to achieve various effects—with the perforations up for a straight ball, toward the pitcher’s thumb for a curve, and toward the outer fingers for a slider.
The inventor’s grandsons still run the family enterprise, with a product unchanged since its 1953 launch. Their dad, the pitcher for whom the ball was designed, told The Atlantic in 2002 that the Mullany family believed cutting the holes might create a “weight imbalance” that would cause the ball to curve. To this day, the company insists, “we don’t know exactly why it works—it just does!”
That folksy answer is charming, but a scientific one can foster even greater admiration for this curious ball and the sport that makes use of it.
* * *
Before Wiffle ball, uncertainty over the baseball curveball motivated investigation from both the media and the scientific community. Life magazine commissioned photographic studies of curve balls in 1941, to determine whether the phenomenon was real or an optical illusion. The magazine’s editors concluded it was illusory, enraging pitchers of the era.
[...]
