Sunday, October 21, 2012

Batty about Physics

I took this photo at Yankee stadium this summer. Number 35, Justin Smoak of the Seattle Mariners, is preparing to hit a ball thrown by number 18, Hiroki Kuroda of the New York Yankees. In this photo the baseball is going at a constant horizontal velocity (neglecting air resistance) towards the batter, but the force due to gravity will pull the ball down so that the baseball accelerates in the vertical direction. The batter must know at what position the baseball will be at after the pitcher throws the ball so that he can hit it with the bat. The batter must know that the force of gravity will lower the ball otherwise he would aim the bat too high and would miss hitting the baseball completely.


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