OK, so I flunked out of college physics and switched my major from engineering to marketing. So I need help from someone more knowledgable than myself to figure this one out.
Can Sammy Sosa hit a baseball farther off a tee (or tossing it straight up) or when hitting a 90mph fastball? It seems like I can hit a fastball a lot farther than a stationary ball, but I can’t explain this in physics terms. As I see it, there are two forces here to contend with: the momentum of the baseball and the “bouce factor” of the baseball on the bat. (I have no idea how to quantify this)
Now, it is hard to imagine how the bounce factor can be larger than the force required to overcome the momentum of the baseball. Can someone explain this to me?
Is my guess, that an incoming fastball struck with a certain weight bat and swing speed will go farther than a stationary ball struck with the same weight bat and speed swing, correct? How is this possible?
Look at it this way – if the bat were stationary the fastball would bounce off. If you threw a baseball 90 mph at a solid wall it would rebound with considerable velocity. That is the rebound effect that adds to the velocity of the pitched ball that isn’t there with a ball on a tee. It may not be the predominant force in the equation but it’s not negligible either.
The momentum of the bat is sufficient to provide the impetus to a stationary ball and to overcome (and reverse) the incoming momentum of a pitched ball. The difficulty isn’t in having enough energy to do the job, it’s in hitting the darn thing. Of course Sammy Sosa’s bat is gonna have a lot more momentum than mine, say, and he’s gonna do a whole lot better job of connecting. So his long balls will generally go a little farther than mine.
I haven’t thought about physics for 12 years, but here’s my recollection:
force= mass x acceleration
The mass of the ball and bat are the same in either the hitting it off a tee or hitting the fastball scenario. But there is a huge difference in the acceleration.
A bat speed of 90 mph (as I recall reading on another thread here recently) would be the same in both situations, too. But in the fastball scenario than you have an additional factor of the ball moving towards the bat at 90 mph or so. The ball and bat speed together have the effect of the bat striking the ball at 180 mph instead of just 90 mph. Therefore, greater force is created, and the hit pitch will travel much farther than a ball hit off a tee.
Just skimming the physics of it, think of it this way. If Sammy has a tee set up with a ball, and holds the bat in mid-swing position (but not touching the ball), the ball will stay on the tee.
Now, if he has the bat in that position and someone fires a fastball at the bat (assuming he could hold the bat perfectly still upon impact), the ball is going to “bounce” back towards the pitcher.
The kinetic energy in the moving ball is transferred, sending the ball in the opposite direction.
I’m sure someone can (and probably will) go much further into detail than this.
Yes, but you must factor in the weight of the bat they are using. I dare say that even though Sheffield has greater bat speed, McGwire, Gallaraga, or Sosa can consistantly crank 'em further than can Gary.