Jump to content

Relativistic Baseball


CincyInDC

Recommended Posts

Not Reds-related per se, but almost as awesome as stealing home on a pop-up to 2nd.

http://what-if.xkcd.com/1/


[quote]
[b] [url="http://what-if.xkcd.com/1/"]Relativistic Baseball[/url][/b]

What would happen if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90% the speed of light?
- Ellen McManis
Let’s set aside the question of how we got the baseball moving that fast. We'll suppose it's a normal pitch, except in the instant the pitcher releases the ball, it magically accelerates to 0.9c. From that point onward, everything proceeds according to normal physics.:
[img]http://what-if.xkcd.com/imgs/a/1/01.png[/img]
The answer turns out to be “a lot of things”, and they all happen very quickly, and it doesn’t end well for the batter (or the pitcher). I sat down with some physics books, a Nolan Ryan action figure, and a bunch of videotapes of nuclear tests and tried to sort it all out. What follows is my best guess at a nanosecond-by-nanosecond portrait:
[/quote]

you'll have to click the above link to see the rest.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...