WEBVTT 00:00:02.040 --> 00:00:08.980 Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. 00:00:10.320 --> 00:00:12.720 StarTalk begins right now. 00:00:13.360 --> 00:00:15.980 This is StarTalk Sports Edition. 00:00:16.120 --> 00:00:19.460 Neil deGrasse Tyson here, you're a personal astrophysicist. 00:00:19.760 --> 00:00:22.080 Got with me my two co-hosts, Gary O'Reilly. 00:00:22.100 --> 00:00:22.420 Gary. 00:00:22.440 --> 00:00:23.340 Hi, Neil. 00:00:23.820 --> 00:00:26.880 All right, always good to have you guys here, and Chuck Nice, of course. 00:00:27.100 --> 00:00:28.720 Hey, hey, hey, what's happening, guys? 00:00:29.680 --> 00:00:34.320 So, I, just to be clear, I engaged in high school and intercollegiate athletics. 00:00:34.740 --> 00:00:40.780 Gary was a professional soccer player in the UK, and Chuck, you've done no organized sports. 00:00:41.200 --> 00:00:42.700 I have watched sports, sir. 00:00:42.880 --> 00:00:45.540 Okay, you've watched organized sports. 00:00:45.560 --> 00:00:51.380 And I have also thrown several Super Bowl parties, which is organizing sports. 00:00:51.400 --> 00:00:53.600 That counts, so this counts, all right. 00:00:54.380 --> 00:00:56.160 That's why we have you on here. 00:00:56.160 --> 00:01:04.840 So what we're going to do this episode is have some things you thought you knew, or maybe things you didn't think you knew. 00:01:05.620 --> 00:01:13.260 And this is a spin-off of very successful format from our StarTalk flagship podcast. 00:01:13.460 --> 00:01:18.300 And so we're going to do three different topics that you might have thought you knew about, but maybe you didn't. 00:01:18.900 --> 00:01:20.160 Are you guys okay with that? 00:01:20.180 --> 00:01:20.880 We're good. 00:01:21.040 --> 00:01:21.580 Oh yeah. 00:01:22.120 --> 00:01:22.700 Let's do it. 00:01:22.720 --> 00:01:26.880 So I want to lead off with something in baseball called the rising fastball. 00:01:27.720 --> 00:01:29.420 The rising fastball. 00:01:29.480 --> 00:01:30.760 Very hard to hit. 00:01:31.640 --> 00:01:33.200 Very hard to hit. 00:01:33.600 --> 00:01:38.920 Because you see the ball coming in and you're ready to swing for it and you always swing underneath it. 00:01:40.260 --> 00:01:46.320 And because you think it's going to be somewhere where it isn't, of course that's the whole point of what the pitcher's trying to do. 00:01:46.620 --> 00:01:50.840 The whole point is to fool the batter in whatever way they can. 00:01:51.200 --> 00:01:55.540 But I just wanted to focus in this particular moment on the rising fastball. 00:01:55.940 --> 00:02:02.920 So the batter describes the ball as rising, rising up from wherever they saw they thought it was going to be. 00:02:03.640 --> 00:02:08.000 But of course gravity doesn't work that way. 00:02:08.020 --> 00:02:09.580 Unless the pitcher is a Jedi. 00:02:10.240 --> 00:02:10.740 Ah. 00:02:12.260 --> 00:02:13.760 Gravity doesn't work that way. 00:02:13.780 --> 00:02:22.240 And old timers among us, old timer Americans, so Gary might not know this, back in the 1970s, they lowered the height of the pitcher's mound. 00:02:23.220 --> 00:02:25.580 To give a better advantage to the batters. 00:02:25.800 --> 00:02:26.160 Right. 00:02:26.260 --> 00:02:28.920 And I forgot how much was it, six, it was just a few inches. 00:02:29.860 --> 00:02:30.460 And you know. 00:02:30.480 --> 00:02:31.860 Why don't you just get shorter pitchers? 00:02:33.120 --> 00:02:34.340 That would be the same effect. 00:02:36.800 --> 00:02:42.380 You know who was short was the pitcher for the Red Sox, Pedro, what was his last name? 00:02:42.620 --> 00:02:43.600 I just knew him as Pedro. 00:02:43.900 --> 00:02:44.700 Pedro Martinez? 00:02:44.720 --> 00:02:45.860 Martinez, Martinez, yes. 00:02:46.040 --> 00:02:46.900 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:02:47.120 --> 00:02:48.740 He was relatively short for pitchers. 00:02:48.980 --> 00:02:56.540 For as good a pitcher as he was, and you're thinking you got to be tall to have the good sort of arm angle and all of this. 00:02:56.860 --> 00:03:03.640 So pitchers, so Gary, you want short pitchers, but they're not easy to come by, right? 00:03:04.240 --> 00:03:08.260 You know, some of the most dominating pitchers have all been tall. 00:03:08.420 --> 00:03:09.360 Randy Johnson. 00:03:09.820 --> 00:03:11.200 Randy Johnson among them. 00:03:11.220 --> 00:03:11.900 Yeah, he was a giant. 00:03:11.920 --> 00:03:22.240 Imagine, you think about the length of lever that they're able to bring to a pitch, and then you've got the vertical aspect and him stood on a mound, even if you know with it. 00:03:22.480 --> 00:03:23.920 Yes. 00:03:23.940 --> 00:03:25.080 He showed up for practice. 00:03:25.100 --> 00:03:26.660 They were like, you're in the wrong sport, man. 00:03:28.500 --> 00:03:30.020 You're in the wrong sport. 00:03:30.040 --> 00:03:31.360 The basketball court's that way. 00:03:31.680 --> 00:03:33.780 Then they found out he couldn't jump. 00:03:33.800 --> 00:03:37.300 So I said, okay, you stay right where you are. 00:03:37.320 --> 00:03:43.700 Do you remember seeing that video of him pitching and he completely vaporized a pigeon that flew across the path? 00:03:43.720 --> 00:03:45.040 Yes, I saw that. 00:03:45.060 --> 00:03:48.800 A pigeon flew across and there was nothing left of the pigeon. 00:03:50.840 --> 00:03:57.280 That was, I mean, if you had to die, you know, a Randy Johnson fastball, completely obliterating. 00:03:57.340 --> 00:04:01.180 What are the chances of that actually happening? 00:04:01.200 --> 00:04:03.340 Whatever those chances are, he nails it. 00:04:03.360 --> 00:04:03.860 It happened. 00:04:03.880 --> 00:04:04.520 It happened. 00:04:06.740 --> 00:04:14.240 Listen, that pigeon is more famous than the Sully, Captain Sully Sullenberger Geese, that's for sure. 00:04:14.260 --> 00:04:15.280 Right, right, right. 00:04:15.640 --> 00:04:20.060 Yeah, there's basically, birds are not sturdy objects, right? 00:04:20.080 --> 00:04:21.320 They have to be light enough to fly. 00:04:21.340 --> 00:04:23.120 Their bones are very fragile. 00:04:23.420 --> 00:04:24.560 The bones are basically hollow. 00:04:24.580 --> 00:04:24.880 Hollow. 00:04:24.900 --> 00:04:26.680 They have to be hollow, yeah. 00:04:26.700 --> 00:04:27.780 Yeah, otherwise they'd be. 00:04:28.560 --> 00:04:38.540 So, if you take the energy of a Randy Johnson fastball and ask what happens when you deposit that much energy into a pigeon, there's basically no pigeon left. 00:04:38.600 --> 00:04:40.160 You have a feathered pillow. 00:04:40.260 --> 00:04:41.020 That's what you have. 00:04:42.060 --> 00:04:43.640 That's some feathers for a pillow, that's it. 00:04:44.460 --> 00:04:47.540 So, getting back to the rising fastball. 00:04:47.820 --> 00:04:50.600 So, here's the point. 00:04:51.320 --> 00:05:07.300 So, in the 1970s, they lowered the mound, I think it was the 70s, yeah, they lowered the mound to bring some advantage back to the batter so that the pitcher's not towering over you, plus with their fully outstretched arm, and they're pitching sort of down to you, all right, rather than straight at you. 00:05:07.420 --> 00:05:08.660 All right, so that helped a little bit. 00:05:08.680 --> 00:05:13.260 But like you said, Gary, a shorter pitcher would have had the same effect as lowering the mound. 00:05:14.940 --> 00:05:22.680 So what it did, it put shorter pitchers at a disadvantage, okay, relative to taller pitchers where they didn't even make a difference. 00:05:22.940 --> 00:05:24.920 So make a long story short. 00:05:25.400 --> 00:05:42.080 As you know, you can put a spin on a ball, and as long as the ball is thrown through an atmosphere, such as what we have on Earth, then the arc of the ball will veer from what would be normal to the force of gravity. 00:05:43.520 --> 00:05:48.220 From what you'd expect, giving purely the force of gravity acting on the object. 00:05:48.680 --> 00:05:52.480 Which is why you cannot have curve balls on the moon. 00:05:53.420 --> 00:05:55.280 It will not work, okay? 00:05:55.320 --> 00:05:58.060 You cannot have rising fast balls on the moon. 00:05:58.420 --> 00:05:59.300 It will not work. 00:05:59.700 --> 00:06:10.380 All of these trajectory adjustments that are happening en route between the pitcher's release point and the catch and the batter, which is a little less than 60 feet, right? 00:06:12.180 --> 00:06:19.080 Because the pitcher's arm is forward of the pitching rubber and it's the pitching rubber that's 60 feet, six inches from home plate. 00:06:19.380 --> 00:06:23.340 So it's really, you're talking about 58 feet something. 00:06:23.480 --> 00:06:26.100 However, wherever their arm is at the point of release. 00:06:26.760 --> 00:06:30.440 So, and then of course the batter only has a fraction of a second to decide. 00:06:30.740 --> 00:06:45.360 So a lot of the batter's decision has to be, I don't want to call it intuitive, but it has to be what their native understanding of gravity is going to be, or their understanding of the pitcher. 00:06:45.660 --> 00:06:47.040 Some combination of the two. 00:06:47.380 --> 00:06:54.660 Okay, so if you spin the ball with a backspin, so the top of the ball is spinning back towards you. 00:06:54.740 --> 00:06:56.160 Okay, we'll call that a backspin. 00:06:56.560 --> 00:06:59.780 Because for every backspin, there's a part of the ball that's moving forward. 00:06:59.800 --> 00:07:04.400 So you have to specify what the top of the ball is doing. 00:07:04.660 --> 00:07:13.800 So if you throw the ball with the top of the ball, and the top of the ball has backspin, that will create a difference in air pressure between the bottom and the top of the ball. 00:07:15.060 --> 00:07:21.520 So because the air moving across the top of the ball has different speeds relative to the surface of the ball. 00:07:22.200 --> 00:07:23.940 So it speeds up, slows down, speeds up, slow down. 00:07:26.320 --> 00:07:28.180 Well, no, but it is rotating. 00:07:28.300 --> 00:07:32.900 But only one side of the ball will feel the same constant extra force, okay? 00:07:33.220 --> 00:07:35.940 Either it's constant more force or constant less force. 00:07:36.300 --> 00:07:36.660 All right? 00:07:36.880 --> 00:07:37.980 So I'm part of the ball. 00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:39.120 I'm going over the top. 00:07:39.220 --> 00:07:44.100 The top of the ball is spinning back towards the pitcher, okay? 00:07:44.400 --> 00:07:48.480 And the air is moving in that same direction across the top of the ball. 00:07:50.660 --> 00:08:03.580 So the relative speed between the top surface of the ball and the air moving across it, the difference between them is less than the bottom of the ball that's moving towards the batter, okay? 00:08:03.840 --> 00:08:07.100 The bottom of the ball is moving towards the batter and the air is coming back across. 00:08:07.600 --> 00:08:13.400 So in one case, you add the spin speed to the ball speed, in the other case, you subtract it. 00:08:13.680 --> 00:08:16.760 And that difference creates a pressure difference between the top and the bottom. 00:08:16.900 --> 00:08:19.760 If you do that side to side, it'll move the ball left to right. 00:08:21.000 --> 00:08:21.760 Pure and simple. 00:08:22.080 --> 00:08:24.480 We use the same techniques in soccer. 00:08:24.520 --> 00:08:33.440 When you kick underneath or to the side or slightly over the top, the impulse, that's been that sort of Magnus effect. 00:08:33.660 --> 00:08:34.100 Correct. 00:08:34.240 --> 00:08:36.740 That's what it's been so named. 00:08:38.940 --> 00:08:48.880 If you spin it backwards, the ball will not descend as fast as gravity would otherwise take it. 00:08:49.720 --> 00:08:53.640 It still descends, but just not as fast. 00:08:53.900 --> 00:08:57.340 So you're there saying, okay, it's a regular fastball. 00:08:58.020 --> 00:09:02.720 I know how much it's going to drop between the pitcher's arm and when it crosses. 00:09:02.880 --> 00:09:05.600 So I'm going to swing where I know it will be. 00:09:07.020 --> 00:09:12.900 And that spin that the pitcher put on it kept the ball higher than it otherwise would. 00:09:13.240 --> 00:09:15.860 And generally you swing under the ball or you'll pop it up. 00:09:16.760 --> 00:09:22.760 And so if you look at the arc of the ball side to side, you will see the ball sinks. 00:09:23.280 --> 00:09:26.600 It does sink, just not as much as the batter thinks it will. 00:09:27.280 --> 00:09:33.860 Do you remember a conversation we had with Ron Darling, the former Mets pitcher, who was a TV commentator? 00:09:34.200 --> 00:09:42.660 And he was explaining to us how he would set certain hitters up for certain pitches later on in the game or later on in the season. 00:09:42.680 --> 00:09:47.100 Like he would throw some junk at them, so they thought that was going to be the case. 00:09:47.480 --> 00:09:53.360 And I think if you're going to throw this rising fastball, you have to set that hitter up earlier on in the game. 00:09:54.940 --> 00:09:57.740 So you can bring that deception and disguise. 00:09:57.760 --> 00:10:01.880 So you're messing with their expectations. 00:10:02.520 --> 00:10:12.980 Yeah, so throw a regular fastball that's kind of a crappy regular fastball, so he doesn't want to swing at it, but he sees the arc and says, yeah, okay, that's your fastball, I got this. 00:10:13.760 --> 00:10:16.680 Throw one over the middle and see what I'll do with your fastball. 00:10:16.700 --> 00:10:24.180 That's supposed to be the reason why you step out of the batter's box altogether when people think, why does it take so long for, you know... 00:10:24.200 --> 00:10:26.320 A baseball game to unfold, yes. 00:10:27.540 --> 00:10:57.960 You know, it's like, I got here Tuesday and I miss work, I miss work, I, you know, I'm still here, but the reason why they step out of the batter's box is because a lot of hitting is perception, and the idea is to clear your perception of the last pitch and hopefully any other pitches that you might have in mind, and you walk out of the batter's box and you're supposed to take your gaze away from the mound. 00:10:57.980 --> 00:10:59.320 And now you're fresh. 00:10:59.440 --> 00:11:01.500 This stuff actually has a purpose. 00:11:01.760 --> 00:11:03.240 It's not like superstition. 00:11:03.760 --> 00:11:12.000 It looks like these guys are being superstitious because a lot of times they'll add their own little, you know, routines and rituals to it. 00:11:12.020 --> 00:11:16.840 But Chuck, growing up, long games lasted two hours, and many games lasted an hour 40. 00:11:17.140 --> 00:11:20.460 And now short games last two hours, and they all last three hours. 00:11:20.840 --> 00:11:22.520 So I think advertisers... 00:11:22.540 --> 00:11:24.280 I was going to say, you forgot about commercials. 00:11:24.300 --> 00:11:26.680 No, step out of the box. 00:11:26.820 --> 00:11:28.080 We need more commercial time. 00:11:31.260 --> 00:11:36.320 So what you might do is mix up a rising fastball with a sinking fastball, right? 00:11:36.720 --> 00:11:47.960 So now that you think you got my rising fastball figured out, I now throw a fastball that's spinning the other direction and now the force on it pushes it down rather than up. 00:11:48.720 --> 00:11:51.720 And then you've seen this because the center field camera picks it up. 00:11:51.920 --> 00:11:55.920 The ball looks like it's coming straight at the batter and the bottom drops out of it. 00:11:56.380 --> 00:11:59.040 And the catcher practically catches it on the ground. 00:11:59.260 --> 00:12:01.280 And the batter just swings over it and they've got it. 00:12:01.500 --> 00:12:04.700 So the point is, in a rising fastball, nothing rises. 00:12:05.040 --> 00:12:17.020 It simply doesn't fall as fast as your psychology and your understanding of gravity would otherwise have you believe. 00:12:17.040 --> 00:12:17.220 Ha-ha! 00:12:17.560 --> 00:12:24.980 Which in a way makes a curveball maybe a little easier because it's not moving against gravity, it's just moving left to right. 00:12:25.660 --> 00:12:31.420 Or it's got some arc that maybe sort of follow the arc. 00:12:31.440 --> 00:12:33.740 But all good pitches are hard to hit. 00:12:34.120 --> 00:12:38.720 So I don't want to jump in there and say I could do any better than the dude that just struck out. 00:12:38.800 --> 00:12:42.940 Well, you know, some pitchers do the same thing though with an off-speed pitch. 00:12:43.480 --> 00:12:47.120 So it's like you just, it's the same exact pitch. 00:12:47.460 --> 00:12:49.560 You just don't throw it as hard. 00:12:50.240 --> 00:12:52.140 You throw it at chuck speed, like eh. 00:12:52.340 --> 00:12:55.200 Chuck speed, chuck speed, a chuck speed pitch. 00:12:55.220 --> 00:12:57.120 It's called the chuck speed pitch. 00:12:57.600 --> 00:12:58.420 You know what I mean? 00:12:58.560 --> 00:13:01.700 First you blaze them with a 91 mile an hour. 00:13:02.000 --> 00:13:02.940 Blaze them again. 00:13:02.960 --> 00:13:04.340 And then the second one is like, eh. 00:13:05.020 --> 00:13:07.300 And they're like, oh, what the hell just happened? 00:13:09.000 --> 00:13:15.200 So, but you should know that the faster you spin it, the bigger is the Magnus effect. 00:13:16.860 --> 00:13:23.160 So, because the difference in the relative speeds of the air moving across the ball surface becomes greater and greater. 00:13:23.680 --> 00:13:35.620 And so, some of the best pitchers, when they say, boy, they got a lot of movement on that ball, it's because of how quickly they actually spin the ball as it leases from their hand. 00:13:35.640 --> 00:13:49.660 Isn't that when the hitter reads the stitching and they read the speed of rotation because they can tell from the stitching, whether it's blurred, whether there's certain things coming, what kind of pitch, and they've learned to read the stitching? 00:13:50.080 --> 00:13:50.940 Yeah, if you're good. 00:13:50.960 --> 00:13:55.420 If you're in the majors, you're going to be decent, right? 00:13:55.440 --> 00:13:55.960 Who's the batter? 00:13:55.980 --> 00:13:59.260 Spider-Man, who is the batter here? 00:13:59.280 --> 00:14:00.140 Who's counting the stitches? 00:14:00.680 --> 00:14:03.340 Oh, my God, I only saw six stitches go by. 00:14:05.300 --> 00:14:05.800 Whoa. 00:14:05.940 --> 00:14:13.020 So anyhow, I just wanted to sort of reinforce the value of a spinning ball, no matter whether it's a fastball or any other kind of pitch. 00:14:13.760 --> 00:14:24.600 If it's spinning, the pressure differences will move it in ways that give the pitcher amazing control and deceptive power over the batter. 00:14:25.880 --> 00:14:28.080 Lastly, how about the knuckleball? 00:14:29.020 --> 00:14:33.540 Ooh, so the knuckleball does not spin, okay? 00:14:33.960 --> 00:14:39.080 Now, when you see that ball coming, you can see that it's not spinning, all right? 00:14:39.220 --> 00:14:45.820 You just see, now the problem there is, if the ball is not spinning, it is not stabilized as it moves through the air. 00:14:46.240 --> 00:14:46.580 Yes. 00:14:47.000 --> 00:14:48.220 And the slightest... 00:14:50.080 --> 00:14:53.060 Unstable, no, not emotionally unstable. 00:15:00.180 --> 00:15:04.140 You throw me, he throws me back, I can't take it anymore. 00:15:05.500 --> 00:15:09.540 Chuck, the ball, last I checked, experiences no emotions, right? 00:15:10.960 --> 00:15:13.400 That kind of stability, okay. 00:15:13.580 --> 00:15:15.380 So, yeah, rotational stability. 00:15:15.400 --> 00:15:16.820 Rotational stability. 00:15:17.320 --> 00:15:23.180 So, as it moves towards you, it's not rotationally stable against the air it's moving through. 00:15:23.200 --> 00:15:28.240 And so, a slight breeze will just carry the ball to a different place. 00:15:29.140 --> 00:15:34.500 And so, for a knuckleball, especially the catcher, they don't know where the ball is going to end up. 00:15:35.240 --> 00:15:39.440 And a knuckleball is useless on a day where there's no breeze, okay? 00:15:39.460 --> 00:15:40.960 Then it'll just go in a straight arc. 00:15:41.140 --> 00:15:42.660 But if it's kind of breezy... 00:15:43.580 --> 00:15:54.500 Yeah, if it's kind of breezy inside the stadium and sometimes it cooks around, you can look at the flags, but that doesn't tell you, because those are up above the level of the top of the stadium. 00:15:54.700 --> 00:15:59.560 So this circulating air can be the knuckleballer's best friend. 00:16:00.160 --> 00:16:08.040 And many knuckleballers are famous for throwing wild pitches or having passed balls, because the batter doesn't know where... 00:16:08.060 --> 00:16:12.300 I mean, the catcher doesn't know where to put the mitt as the ball moves around. 00:16:12.380 --> 00:16:18.440 So that is the absence of a spin also creating movement because we don't have a spin stabilized situation. 00:16:18.520 --> 00:16:19.540 We're going to take a quick break. 00:16:19.560 --> 00:16:22.200 When we come back, more Things You Thought You Knew. 00:16:22.220 --> 00:16:24.780 T-K-Y-K. 00:16:25.220 --> 00:16:26.360 Did I get all the letters there? 00:16:27.800 --> 00:16:29.680 T-Y-K-Y-K. 00:16:29.940 --> 00:16:32.880 Things You Thought You Knew on StarTalk Sports Edition. 00:16:32.900 --> 00:16:33.440 We'll be right back. 00:16:43.178 --> 00:16:45.218 We're back, StarTalk Sports Edition. 00:16:45.538 --> 00:16:53.618 Things you thought you knew, or maybe you do know and didn't know enough, or knew and you want to hear it again, or never knew, or never thought you knew or even cared. 00:16:55.738 --> 00:16:57.098 And now you know the real title. 00:16:57.258 --> 00:16:58.818 That's the full title. 00:16:58.838 --> 00:16:59.818 That's the full title, people. 00:16:59.838 --> 00:17:00.678 The full title. 00:17:00.678 --> 00:17:01.578 That's the full title. 00:17:01.818 --> 00:17:05.198 So for this segment, I want to talk about lip outs in golf. 00:17:07.238 --> 00:17:13.018 And you know, I see golf, I'm not a golf player, you know. 00:17:13.238 --> 00:17:17.778 I just always imagine the conversation between a golfer and a baseball player, right? 00:17:18.358 --> 00:17:20.278 And just how that would go by. 00:17:20.298 --> 00:17:27.278 So the baseball player says, so you want complete silence when you hit the ball? 00:17:27.298 --> 00:17:28.718 I say, yeah, we need silence. 00:17:29.118 --> 00:17:31.518 They say, well, how fast is the ball moving? 00:17:32.898 --> 00:17:33.378 Not at all. 00:17:33.398 --> 00:17:34.838 Oh, it's stationary. 00:17:34.878 --> 00:17:35.998 Well, where is it? 00:17:36.238 --> 00:17:37.478 Oh, it's right between my feet. 00:17:37.878 --> 00:17:40.898 It's so weird. 00:17:41.638 --> 00:17:42.778 And so, you need silence? 00:17:42.798 --> 00:17:43.638 Yeah, that takes concentration. 00:17:43.718 --> 00:17:44.458 Well, how about you? 00:17:44.638 --> 00:17:52.458 Oh, well, our ball is moving 90 miles an hour, thrown by someone who doesn't want me to hit it. 00:17:52.478 --> 00:17:53.398 While I'm being booed. 00:17:54.298 --> 00:17:56.798 While 50,000 people are screaming at you. 00:17:57.178 --> 00:18:04.378 So to me, that's a fascinating sort of exchange that may, I don't know, should we have more of those or fewer of those? 00:18:04.398 --> 00:18:04.798 I don't know. 00:18:05.078 --> 00:18:22.138 But what we all know is that certain golf, typically a putt, but it can happen on any shot, the ball will hit the rim of the cup and then spiral around and pop out. 00:18:23.658 --> 00:18:26.618 Frustrating for the golfer because that's a lost shot right there. 00:18:26.638 --> 00:18:28.358 It's a stroke off. 00:18:28.378 --> 00:18:29.258 It's a stroke off and... 00:18:34.838 --> 00:18:35.498 Yeah, thank you. 00:18:35.518 --> 00:18:37.458 We'll go with dropped shot, shall we? 00:18:38.038 --> 00:18:39.958 Dropped shot, right. 00:18:41.518 --> 00:18:46.238 So what's interesting about it is it can happen almost no matter how far away you are from the cup. 00:18:47.218 --> 00:18:55.378 There are good videos of compilations of lip outs where some guy was like a couple of feet away and he taps it in, but it lips out. 00:18:56.038 --> 00:19:02.318 And then everyone says, oh, and then he just goes around a little cocky, said, you're going in this time, bop, lips out again. 00:19:02.858 --> 00:19:07.238 And so he lost two strokes when the ball was within two feet of the cup. 00:19:07.878 --> 00:19:09.998 I think they call that you suck. 00:19:12.198 --> 00:19:13.798 Pretty sure that's the golfing term. 00:19:13.818 --> 00:19:14.918 That's the official. 00:19:16.338 --> 00:19:22.298 I mean, if anyone's watched Caddyshack the movie, they know it's a gopher in the hole that's pushing the ball. 00:19:22.738 --> 00:19:25.318 The gopher, I forgot about the gopher. 00:19:26.018 --> 00:19:28.498 The gopher's at fault for all of it. 00:19:28.518 --> 00:19:29.678 Yes. 00:19:29.858 --> 00:19:30.998 So here's what's going on. 00:19:32.478 --> 00:19:38.818 You think you're hitting the ball straight and you are, and so the ball has what we call linear momentum. 00:19:39.338 --> 00:19:41.538 So it's momentum in the direction it's headed. 00:19:42.578 --> 00:20:00.498 However, if you do not hit the ball exactly towards the center of the cup and it sees the rim of the cup, it's like you reaching out to like a maypole as you're trying to run by it, grabbing it and what happens to you? 00:20:04.938 --> 00:20:16.178 So all of a sudden, your linear momentum, okay, what you think is purely linear momentum also manifests as angular momentum around the pole, okay? 00:20:16.618 --> 00:20:18.198 So that happens, you reach out and grab. 00:20:18.218 --> 00:20:25.858 So when the ball sees the depression in the cup, that's effectively falling towards the middle of the cup. 00:20:26.118 --> 00:20:31.618 And so there's angular momentum there that is getting picked up as it goes around the center. 00:20:31.698 --> 00:20:39.438 And depending on how fast the ball is moving and how much on the lip it was, it'll either swivel and go in or swivel and pop out again. 00:20:40.098 --> 00:20:46.038 And so the only way to avoid this on every single shot is hit it directly to the center of the cup. 00:20:46.798 --> 00:20:47.518 Does it also drop? 00:20:47.538 --> 00:20:51.738 Well, that's all, to the center of the cup and it drops in. 00:20:51.838 --> 00:20:53.158 Does it matter on how much... 00:20:53.178 --> 00:20:57.598 Is there a critical mass of the ball that must be below the lip of the cup? 00:20:57.618 --> 00:20:58.658 Oh, very good point. 00:20:59.378 --> 00:21:07.698 So I'd have to do a calculation on this, but I would say if you got half the mass of the ball below the lip, that it's going in. 00:21:07.718 --> 00:21:09.298 Yeah. 00:21:10.098 --> 00:21:18.418 And because it's very hard to all of a sudden have a force vector pointing upwards while this is happening. 00:21:18.478 --> 00:21:26.878 By the way, unless the ball is spinning, depending on which way the ball is spinning, if it's spinning, it can actually crawl out if that's the direction the spin is going. 00:21:26.958 --> 00:21:30.478 That happens in basketball, where you see the ball ring around. 00:21:30.498 --> 00:21:33.618 So in basketball, lip outs are every third shot, right? 00:21:33.638 --> 00:21:34.538 I mean, when you think about it. 00:21:34.558 --> 00:21:38.338 Yeah, it rings around and then it comes, it gets thrown out. 00:21:38.838 --> 00:21:40.578 It's actually in the hole. 00:21:40.598 --> 00:21:42.318 It's in the cylinder. 00:21:42.338 --> 00:21:43.158 Well, I haven't seen it. 00:21:43.238 --> 00:21:46.278 Find me one where it's half already in the cylinder. 00:21:51.138 --> 00:21:54.638 I don't think more than half, but definitely it's in the cylinder. 00:21:55.258 --> 00:21:56.398 Oh, yeah, I can totally be in there. 00:21:56.398 --> 00:21:56.998 Up to half, yeah. 00:21:57.018 --> 00:22:06.858 But it's touching the side and depending on the spin, the internal angular momentum the ball had by your shot, that will affect what it's going to do as it kisses the rim. 00:22:07.978 --> 00:22:13.158 And so some shooters will give a backspin when they hit the back of the rim. 00:22:13.178 --> 00:22:16.618 So then the spin takes it in with that much more vigor. 00:22:16.958 --> 00:22:21.558 But if you have different spins and you hit the rim in the wrong way, it's going to spin in a way you don't want. 00:22:21.578 --> 00:22:22.458 You're not going to make the shot. 00:22:22.698 --> 00:22:23.898 So the same is true in golf. 00:22:23.918 --> 00:22:30.338 And in golf, the spin on the ball matters for so many of those shots, particularly ones that are onto the green. 00:22:30.558 --> 00:22:32.978 You don't want it to keep moving and rolling off the green. 00:22:32.998 --> 00:22:34.398 So so many of them have backspin. 00:22:34.418 --> 00:22:36.278 Bunker shots, Neil. 00:22:36.438 --> 00:22:50.438 If you've found yourself in a sand trap, you've got to get right underneath the ball, flatten the face of the club, and then you impart the backspin on it, so as it doesn't overrun on a fast green, and then we'll spin and drop, and then that will be the rotation. 00:22:50.518 --> 00:22:51.058 Exactly. 00:22:51.078 --> 00:23:00.018 And golfers are excellent navigators of subtleties in terrain, so that if you're going to do a backspin, you're going to do it on a... 00:23:00.418 --> 00:23:01.318 On the high side. 00:23:01.338 --> 00:23:03.058 On the high side, so then it rolls back down. 00:23:03.118 --> 00:23:04.338 So you're going to think this through. 00:23:04.858 --> 00:23:07.218 Well, you'll do it even if it goes low, right? 00:23:07.278 --> 00:23:13.438 You especially need it if it goes low, because you don't want it to then roll off and go into the pond or into the brush. 00:23:13.778 --> 00:23:18.878 So all I'm saying is that the only way to avoid it is to send it straight in. 00:23:19.218 --> 00:23:24.618 So remind me again why when it looks like it's going to go in, it rises up. 00:23:25.098 --> 00:23:30.198 What is elevating that for it to lip out and not lip down? 00:23:30.878 --> 00:23:34.458 Okay, so what you're saying is it's already partly in the cup. 00:23:34.958 --> 00:23:36.338 So what's it doing? 00:23:36.638 --> 00:23:39.678 So it has so much momentum, right? 00:23:39.698 --> 00:23:42.138 The question is how is that momentum going to manifest? 00:23:42.638 --> 00:23:47.598 Okay, and so as it comes, so let's say you lip left to right and out. 00:23:47.978 --> 00:23:57.518 It goes in, so what's actually happening is it's almost like the bank of the track in NASCAR. 00:23:58.018 --> 00:23:58.258 Oh. 00:23:58.778 --> 00:24:00.138 Okay, think about that. 00:24:00.318 --> 00:24:17.258 So here I am in a car, and if I'm driving too fast on that bank, okay, I can tell you now if you drive 300 miles an hour into a bank, I don't think the rubber in the road is going to hold you to the bank, and it looks like you should just fall into the middle. 00:24:17.358 --> 00:24:18.458 You're just going to fall in. 00:24:18.538 --> 00:24:22.338 No, you're going to fly right out, head in the other direction on the other side of the track. 00:24:22.618 --> 00:24:29.618 Okay, so we're imparting that theory into a golf ball as to why it rises out of the car. 00:24:29.638 --> 00:24:37.498 Correct, correct, because when you're in a car and you're on a bank, you feel this force sort of pushing you outward, right, depending on how fast you hit that bank. 00:24:38.158 --> 00:24:44.238 And that's what helps keep you on the track provided you don't take the turn too fast. 00:24:44.638 --> 00:24:52.458 So all we're saying here is that on that turn, if you have enough momentum, then that momentum will continue to carry. 00:24:53.218 --> 00:24:59.378 And the fact that the ball was a little bit in won't matter because it's seeing the... 00:24:59.658 --> 00:25:02.198 By the way, it's not in the cup when that happens. 00:25:02.218 --> 00:25:05.058 It's on the part of the grass that bends in. 00:25:05.238 --> 00:25:05.918 It's on the lip. 00:25:06.378 --> 00:25:06.998 It's on the lip. 00:25:07.018 --> 00:25:09.998 And on that lip, it's not a perfect 90 degrees. 00:25:10.018 --> 00:25:12.258 It's a small, tiny little bank. 00:25:12.278 --> 00:25:13.278 Tiny little bank. 00:25:13.458 --> 00:25:16.878 It's a tiny little bank between the grass and the turf and where the cup begins. 00:25:16.978 --> 00:25:19.338 And that's the bank where this thing flies out on. 00:25:19.438 --> 00:25:33.938 Now, if only we could get that ball to do what the car on the bank does, which is fly out and then explode in a fiery ball of death. 00:25:34.858 --> 00:25:35.758 I would watch golf. 00:25:38.538 --> 00:25:39.498 I would watch golf. 00:25:41.418 --> 00:25:42.698 That would be amazing. 00:25:42.718 --> 00:25:44.838 Finally. 00:25:45.058 --> 00:25:46.978 We'll talk to the authorities on that one. 00:25:47.938 --> 00:25:50.058 Can't see this taking off on the Golf Channel, can you? 00:25:55.558 --> 00:25:56.758 Exploding golf? 00:25:56.998 --> 00:25:58.958 Oh, my God, I'm watching that. 00:25:59.098 --> 00:26:05.898 We've all seen clips of practical jokes where the ball is something that explodes on it. 00:26:05.938 --> 00:26:09.338 Not explodes dangerously, but just pulverizes on impact. 00:26:09.358 --> 00:26:10.338 We've seen that, right? 00:26:10.498 --> 00:26:19.858 You make a golf ball out of chalk or something, but the person doesn't know it, you're the one who puts the ball on the ground waiting for them and then they hit it and then it's just a puff of smoke. 00:26:20.038 --> 00:26:20.578 I've seen that. 00:26:20.598 --> 00:26:26.738 That right there is eminently more entertaining than actual golf. 00:26:29.518 --> 00:26:30.738 That's all I was saying. 00:26:30.978 --> 00:26:34.138 That is more entertaining than actual golf. 00:26:34.158 --> 00:26:35.838 Could we get whisper commentary, though? 00:26:36.998 --> 00:26:39.238 Oh, that'd be so awesome. 00:26:39.258 --> 00:26:42.358 Just like, he's addressing the ball right now. 00:26:43.578 --> 00:26:44.818 It's a beautiful day here at Augusta. 00:26:44.838 --> 00:26:47.258 The winds are out in the south, southwest. 00:26:47.818 --> 00:26:49.358 I see the ball is on ET. 00:26:50.078 --> 00:26:54.418 As he approaches the ball, here's the backswing, and... 00:26:56.858 --> 00:26:58.658 What the hell just happened? 00:26:58.678 --> 00:26:58.778 Oh, man! 00:27:05.685 --> 00:27:10.425 Okay, I'm sure Chuck's agent is, the phone is ringing off the hook to get Chuck to comment. 00:27:10.645 --> 00:27:14.085 Come on, that is awesome. 00:27:14.105 --> 00:27:14.765 Exploding clock. 00:27:14.785 --> 00:27:24.785 So if any of our audience are listening or watching this, and they play golf and they lip out in the future, it's not because you suck, it's just because of science. 00:27:24.785 --> 00:27:25.445 Science. 00:27:26.045 --> 00:27:32.765 And by the way, of course, the ball can bounce in and bounce off the bottom of the cup, and bounce out. 00:27:35.005 --> 00:27:35.885 That's not lipping out. 00:27:36.185 --> 00:27:45.665 I've got to know now, maybe you know it or not, let's say the ball does pop in, like it's bouncing, bouncing, bouncing, bounces in the cup. 00:27:45.765 --> 00:27:46.345 And back out. 00:27:46.345 --> 00:27:47.785 It bounces back out. 00:27:48.425 --> 00:27:51.985 Is that still considered, it touched the bottom of the cup. 00:27:53.065 --> 00:27:58.425 Is that a shot made, or do you have to then complete, put it back in the cup? 00:27:58.445 --> 00:27:59.305 Have you sunk that? 00:27:59.645 --> 00:28:03.085 Is that technically a sink, whatever you call it, that's in? 00:28:03.105 --> 00:28:03.805 Yeah, without, yeah. 00:28:03.865 --> 00:28:05.405 Because the cup is metal, isn't it? 00:28:05.425 --> 00:28:06.945 So there's every chance that if it's- 00:28:06.965 --> 00:28:09.305 Well, it's tin, yeah, tin cup, as they say, yeah. 00:28:09.305 --> 00:28:14.805 So if it falls vertically, then there's a chance it can vertically pop. 00:28:15.545 --> 00:28:16.125 That's what I'm saying. 00:28:16.145 --> 00:28:17.065 It could pop back out, yeah. 00:28:17.085 --> 00:28:27.865 If it's a high enough arc on the bounce, and it ends up falling directly into the cup, hitting the bottom and then popping back out, is that now a shot made? 00:28:27.865 --> 00:28:31.745 It just needs enough energy to bounce several, even bounce a couple times to then pop back out. 00:28:31.805 --> 00:28:34.005 Officials, we need golf officials for our chat. 00:28:34.025 --> 00:28:37.745 I'm suspecting the ball has to still be in the bottom of the cup when you reach in there to continue. 00:28:37.745 --> 00:28:39.585 See, that is cold blooded, man. 00:28:40.105 --> 00:28:41.625 No, just become a better golfer. 00:28:41.785 --> 00:28:43.505