This weekend i had some friends over to play pool at my house. This is a picture of me shooting the ball in one of the games. At that very moment i realized that this was physics. So i got my camera and took a picture. When the stick hits the ball, depending on how hard, the force will be transferred from the stick to the ball causing the ball to accelerate forward. The ball will accelerate for a little while until it reaches a constant speed. The friction of the ball and the fabric then plays a big factor because this causes the ball to decrease in velocity going in a forward motion. Velocity is the speed and direction an object is moving and acceleration is the change in velocity over a certain amount of time. The cue ball sitting on the table has an initial velocity of zero until i hit it with the stick. Then the cue ball accelerates, holds a constant velocity, then decreases in velocity. When the cue ball comes in contact with the ball you were aiming at, it stops instantly and the force is transferred to the ball it hit. This causes the ball to accelerate into a pocket.
6 comments:
Hello,
i love to play pool and i never realized there was so much physics.
wow gavin, this is such a good example of physics, i wonder who thought of this one???
haha oh noooo
pool (because im great at that)
great example :]
lucky...i wish i had a pool table at home...always have to go Hawaiian brians to play...
haha was that weekend referring to after the driving range? anyway. i don't think pool physics applies to me, as i can never hit the cue ball well enough to even hit another ball! i'm sure you know this. haha. =)
yeah erin. thats why i smoked you so bad. just kidding. ping pong rematch next time.
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