Monday, September 6, 2010

Physics of Baseball Fielding

I was watching a baseball game soon after receiving this assignment, and I realized, being a baseball player myself, that there was a lot of physics involved in the play of the sport.  I play in the outfield, which means a lot of running around, and I realized that the way I play in that position relates to our recent topics of displacement, velocity, and acceleration.  While waiting for the pitch to be thrown and the ball to be hit, I stand still waiting, my velocity at 0 m/s.  When I see that the ball is a line drive hit in front of me, I run in, accelerating as fast as I can toward the ball, until I reach my peak velocity. I catch the ball while I am running in, maintaining a constant velocity, then take a small hop to slow my velocity a little before I throw: some negative acceleration.  After I gun the ball in to the catcher and get the runner tagged out, I stutter my feet so I have even more negative acceleration until my velocity is zero.  When the play is finished, I run back, with a negative velocity, until I am at my original position.  At this point, my displacement has become zero.  Even in a play as common as the one I just described, physics is a major factor that contributes to the overall action.