:the science behind

thephysics

volleyballbehind

badmintonand

Revealed!

table of contentsEnergeia

1Table of Contents

Facts about volleyball

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3How to badminton:

the geek way

5The science behind

volleyball

7Facts about badminton

8Meet the Editors

FACTS ABOUT VOLLEYBALL

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The game of volleyball was invented in 1895 by William G. Morgan.

The first World Championships were held in 1949 for men and 1952 for women.

Volleyball were first introduced as Olympic sports in 1964.

Most volleyball players jump about 300 times a match.

Volleyball took some of its characteristics from tennis and handball.

Volleyball is the second most popular sport in the world to-day, exceeded only by soccer.

The first special designed ball for the sport was created in 1900.

Volleyball was called min-tonette at first but it was later changed to volleyball.

The first two-man beach game was played in 1930.

The longest recorded volleyball game was in Kingston, North Carolina. It took 75 hours and 30 minutes.

HOW TO BADMITONthe geek way

When it comes to flying pro-jectiles, the b a d m i n t o n

shuttlecock or “birdie” is unusual in that it flips on impact with a racket so that it always flies cork-first. This flipping motion arises from the fact that, unlike almost all other sports projectiles, the shuttlecock has a conical shape and, because the cork is much denser than the feathers, a non-homo-geneous mass.

These unique features have inspired extensive research on the physics of shuttlecock trajectories over the years, with one of the latest studies focusing on the flip phenomenon and its implications on game strategies.

The physicists, Caro-line Cohen, et al., at Ecole Polytechnique and ESPCI Paris Tech, both in France, have published their pa-

per called “The physics of badminton” in a recent is-sue of the New Journal of Physics.

For some back-ground, the scientists note that contemporary badminton originated from the Indian game “tomfool.” The shuttle-cock is traditionally made of 16 goose feathers (or plastic mesh) planted into a cork. It is considered a lightweight and extended object, with a weight of 5 grams and a length of 10 cm, giving it a very large drag. Despite the large drag, shuttlecocks can still achieve top speeds of more than 300 mph (137 m/s).

In their study, the physicists recorded shut-tlecock flips using a high-speed video camera. For a typical flip sequence, the footage revealed a 1-mil-lisecond (ms) contact time with the racket, 20 ms for

the initial flip, and an 80-ms oscillation time dur-ing which the shuttlecock stabilized. When the hit intensity decreases, these times increase. The vid-eo also verified the well-known fact that the shut-tlecock never performs a full 360° turn.

The scientists also investigated how the shut-tlecock geometry influenc-es its flipping dynamics by conducting free fall exper-iments in a water tank. In particular, they compared shuttlecock prototypes whose feather skirts have different opening angles. They found that opening angles that are too small or too large both result in long flipping and stabi-lizing times. Not surpris-ingly, the geometry of real shuttlecocks has been em-pirically chosen to have in-termediate opening angles that allow them to flip and stabilize rapidly.

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Trivia Questions1. A Shuttlecock is launched with an initial velocity of 25 m/s at an angle of 45-degrees with the hori-zontal. Determine the time of flight, the horizontal distance, and the peak height of the Shuttlecock

2. A Shuttlecock leaves the ground with an initial velocity of 12 m/s at an angle of 28-degrees above the horizontal. Determine the time of flight, the horizontal distance, and the peak height of Shut-tlecock..

53 kg

0.283495 kg

the sciencebehind

Volleyball

Forces, acce lera -tion, gravity, projectile motion, and many other such things make volley-ball the game that it is. Vol-leyball is a sport that includes many aspects of Physics some of these are very basic con-cepts while others are more advanced. Better understanding of these concepts could improve a player’s game. Physics ex-plains and elucidates the ba-sic fundamentals of volleyball and why one should perform them in such a way. Average velocity and av-

erage accelera-tion are com-plimentary of each other and are both im-portant to the concept of vol-

leyball. Velocity is defined as dis-

placement in a giv-en time. Once can find velocity by di-viding distance by

time. So the equa-tion for velocity is:

v=d/t. It is possible, with this equation, to

find how fast the ball moves from one place to

another and how fast a play-er moves to different spots on the court. A coach always wants their players to be quick on the court. They mentally assess how much distance they can cover in a short pe-riod of time; or technically speaking, their velocity. Ac-celeration is the rate of change of velocity. Players as well as the volleyball have accelera-tion. This will be discussed more later. Acceleration can be used to find the speed of a player whose velocity increas-es and decreases during a cer-tain amount of time that they

are in motion. Acceleration has both direction and mag-nitude. When a player moves forward and speeds up they have positive acceleration. If a player moves forward and slows down they have negative acceleration. The formula for average acceleration is A avg= (Vf-Vi)/ (tf-ti). Another very basic con-cept of physics that affects volleyball is gravity. It affects every aspect of the game; the players, the ball, the net. If there was not gravity the ball would never come down and there would be no such game. The game of volleyball envelops the forces (a force causes a change in the motion of an object) that exist in na-ture, which are described in Newton’s Laws. Newton’s First Law says: An object at rest re-mains at rest and an object in motion continues in motion with constant velocity unless it experiences a net external force. This law is also known as the law of inertia. Examples of this law are seen in many different situations on the court. If the ball is falling it will continue falling until it hits the ground or is acted upon (passed, set, or hit) by another

player or force. Also, the vol-leyball net will not move unless it’s hit by a player. Newton’s Second Law states: The accel-eration of an object is directly proportional to the Force and inversely proportional to the mass of the object. This can be seen in the equation F=ma. The force a ball is hit with can be found using this law. Fi-nally, Newton’s Third Law ex-plains: There is an equal and opposite reaction for every ac-tion. A force acting on a body is the result of its interaction with another body, so forces always come in pairs. In this case, action and reaction are the two opposite forces, or the action-reaction pair. The force of the volleyball hitting the forearm of the passer would be considered the action; the force of the passer on the ball would be the reaction. This law explains the mechanism of how one would pass a ball. Power is very impor-tant in volleyball. Maximum power is desired to have the most force behind a hit or serve. Power is the time rate at which work is done. When pairing this with the concepts of energy, the arm swing comes to mind. The faster the arm swing, the more power there is behind the ball. This sup-ports the definition of power. There are also many different areas where power is used in the sport, however the most obvious is hitting. Momentum is conserved in collisions. Col-lisions are very important be-cause they happen all the time in volleyball. There

are three types of collisions. The first is a perfectly inelas-tic collision where two objects stick together and move with the same velocity after collid-ing. The second is an elastic collision where the total mo-mentum and total kinetic ener-gy remain constant. The third is an inelastic collision where two objects deform during the collision making the total ki-netic energy decrease and the objects move separately after the collision. Inelastic colli-sions occur during volleyball. When the ball hits the player’s forearm the ball and the arm momentarily deform or dent before the ball bounces off the arm. This happens anytime the ball is touched. Although Physics is not something we would readily think about or explore when considering volleyball, it is ob-vious the game would not even

exist without such knowledge. Using the concepts of Physics one can create a much better understanding of the game of volleyball.

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Badminton has been Olympic sport since 1992.

The USA badminton association was established in 1936.

The record for the world’s shortest badminton match is only six minutes.

The best badminton shuttles are made from the feathers from the left wing of a goose.

Badminton is the world’s fast-est racket sport

16 feathers are used to make a shuttle.

The original name of badmin-ton was shuttlecock.

China and Indonesia have won 70% of all IBF events.

The International Badminton Federation has over 150 mem-ber nations.

A shuttlecock weighs between 4.74 and 5.50 grams.

FACTS ABOUT BADMINTON

meet theeditors

Janelle CastrenceVolleyball Model, Writer

Luigi GuadalupeBadminton Model, Writer

Audrey DiazFacts and Trivia Writer

Jairus PerezLayout, Editor-in-Chief