Gyromania

The Physics of Baseball
by Professor Alan Nathan

Professor Nathan from the

University

of

Illinois Urbana-Champaign

's Department of Physics has devoted much of his time to research the physics of baseball. He has a GREAT website http://webusers.npl.uiuc.edu/~a-nathan/pob/ that I suggest everyone check out.

On this weeks "Wire Tap" Professor Nathan gives us factual insight into the infamous Gyro ball and corked bats, he has lectured extensively on the subject and is one of the top authorities on Sports physics and accordingly the gyro ball itself.

I will include some of his linked work here:

The Gyroball What's all this gyromania about? To find out, click on the link.

Listen to my own presentation at the Science of Baseball Symposium entitled "How Would a Physicist Design a Bat". If you like, you can observe the powerpoint slides as you listen.

4 Comments

Professor Nathan was a guest on our Fantasybaseballmafia.com Podcast called the "wire tap", that's what was eluded to in the body of the message above but there was no link to the podcast, it can be found here:


http://fantasybaseballmafia.com/podcast/wiretaps/Wire%20Tap%204-09-07.MP3

It's helpfull to check out his web site: http://webusers.npl.uiuc.edu/~a-nathan/pob/ while you listen, he has great writen and audio work on dispaly there for everyone to learn about the Gyro-Ball.

GP in Cincinnati

Was Dice-K's first pitch to Richie Sexson a Gyroball? There's no way it was a breaking pitch. It was hard, yet it appeared to rise and break inside to the righty. After the pitch was called a strike Sexson turned to the ump and Varitek and said something. I'm fascinated by all this discussion. GP, thanks for the additional reading material.


Chris in Maine

sorry about the dead link, here is another, hopefully not broken this time


http://www.fantasybaseballmafia.com/podcast/wiretaps/2007/april/Wire%20Tap%204-09-07.MP3

That lecture on aluminium vs. wood was... fascinating.


This guy has done a very rare thing... made a powerpoint lecture fun!

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