# Air Hockey ... Who Invented This? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 12, 2003, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-hockey-who-invented-this/160790 "2003-03-12T09:04:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![matzerath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/22d042/32.png) [@matzerath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matzerath)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2003, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-hockey-who-invented-this/160790/1 "2003-03-12T09:04:24Z")
God help me, I was thinking about Air Hockey the other day, and became baffled by how exactly such a strange (though admittedly fun) quasi ‘sport’ came to be. It’s that chicken or the egg kind of quandary: Air Hockey involves that crazy table full of hundreds of holes that shoot just enough air to slightly elevate a plastic puck, thusly making it possible to whack it with a plastic ‘racket’ against someone else, all in that classic battle for ‘goals’. Did the concept come first, say with merely a greased-down surface, or did the wacky table create the possibility for the game, said table perhaps even concieved for something else? I picture a researcher leaving his prototype to go to lunch, only to come back to find the janitors whacking a rice cake between each other, and then – history. What say you about this? Mike Houser ---
**Author:** ![MissBungle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@MissBungle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MissBungle)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2003, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-hockey-who-invented-this/160790/2 "2003-03-12T09:11:09Z")
I have no clue who invented it… but I want them thank them. I love me the air hockey. I’m not a competetive person…unless it’s air hockey. I would, if asked, play to till the death! ---
**Author:** ![Aslan\_of\_Narnia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@Aslan\_of\_Narnia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aslan_of_Narnia)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2003, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-hockey-who-invented-this/160790/3 "2003-03-12T09:12:38Z")
This forum is for factual answers, Miss Bungle. ---
**Author:** ![MissBungle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@MissBungle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MissBungle)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2003, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-hockey-who-invented-this/160790/4 "2003-03-12T09:19:50Z")
oh… if only i could go back in time and put these nifty lil [hijack] [hijack] thingies around my post. oh… if only. [hijack] do I make you feel important Aslan2? You feel the need to follow my posts by nitpicking. I’m glad I’m helping you feel useful. [hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Aslan\_of\_Narnia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@Aslan\_of\_Narnia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aslan_of_Narnia)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2003, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-hockey-who-invented-this/160790/5 "2003-03-12T09:25:46Z")
[hijack] I’ll say what I really feel abput the subject in the pit. I don’t want to screw up this person’s thread. [hijack] ---
**Author:** ![MissBungle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@MissBungle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MissBungle)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2003, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-hockey-who-invented-this/160790/6 "2003-03-12T10:13:46Z")
"Ice hockey enthusiast Bob Lemieux (and with a last name like Lemieux, how could you not be an ice hockey enthusiast?) dreamed up this popular table game for billiards manufacturers Brunswick back in 1972. " [http://www.yesterdayland.com/popopedia/shows/arcade/ag1238.php](http://www.yesterdayland.com/popopedia/shows/arcade/ag1238.php) ---
**Author:** ![TelcontarStorm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3ab097/32.png) [@TelcontarStorm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TelcontarStorm)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2003, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-hockey-who-invented-this/160790/7 "2003-03-12T13:31:07Z")
[Red Green] Be sure to leave plenty of room for checking and high sticking. [/Red Green] ---
**Author:** ![Rucksinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/898d66/32.png) [@Rucksinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rucksinator)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2003, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-hockey-who-invented-this/160790/8 "2003-03-12T19:30:17Z")
[hijack] TelcontarStorm, you forgot the [hijack] brackets. Aslan2 shall surely destroy you for your impudence. [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![TelcontarStorm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3ab097/32.png) [@TelcontarStorm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TelcontarStorm)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2003, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-hockey-who-invented-this/160790/9 "2003-03-13T13:47:34Z")
But Ruck, I _used_ the [Red Green] brackets. When will the word just \* leave me alone\*? _sob_ ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2003, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-hockey-who-invented-this/160790/10 "2003-03-13T14:43:26Z")
As a slightly more serious attempt at an answer, such a table is a good way to get a surface with a low coefficent of friction. I could easily see such a table being designed first by a physics professor or such, as a good way to show perhaps conservation of momentum. I assume that’s why we have an air-hockey table in one of the physics labs and not that other people are playing air hockey withou me. Then again, I could be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![ChalkPit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e4f/32.png) [@ChalkPit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChalkPit)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2003, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-hockey-who-invented-this/160790/11 "2003-03-13T15:41:36Z")
Good point asterion, I’ve seen air hover tracks being used for conservation of momentum experiments on TV. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2003, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-hockey-who-invented-this/160790/12 "2003-03-13T19:17:56Z")
Indeed, I saw Physics demos with an air hockey type table prior to 1972. (No pucks and goals, just a board with a lot of little holes hooked up to the back end of vacuum cleaner.) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2003, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-hockey-who-invented-this/160790/13 "2003-03-13T20:45:44Z")
My dad reports that, back before someone got the bright idea of putting holes and a blower in the table, his physics class tried to build one with the gas source in the puck (he said they used dry ice). ---
**Author:** ![DreadCthulhu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DreadCthulhu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DreadCthulhu)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2003, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-hockey-who-invented-this/160790/14 "2003-03-13T20:54:37Z")
My physics lab does in fact have a small air track (although not wide enough to play air hockey on ☹ ) that we did use to show conservation of momentum.