Blog 3

I was recently watching a Major League Baseball game, and I realized that physics is involved in the game in more than just throwing.  As a baseball player, I was able to recognize that when a player is hitting, they are using physics again.  Newton's 3rd law states that "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction."  While I was watching a Phillies game, Ryan Howard was up to bat.  He ended up hitting a home run during that bat, but what I was most interested in was the slow motion replay.  Through that replay, I realized how Newton's 3rd law works while batting.  When Howard was swinging the bat at the ball, he gave his bat a force going forward.  The pitcher threw the ball, giving the ball a force going towards the bat.  When the bat hit the ball, the ball responded to the force of the bat by pushing the bat back as the bat pushed the ball forward.  The "action" was Howard's bat hitting the ball, and the "reaction" was the ball pushing the bat back.  The bat, however, has a larger mass, so it didn't move too much.  On the other hand, the ball's mass was relatively small so it was shot 400 feet away into the stands.