William Y. Arzola: Real World Physics in Sports

Physics plays a dominant role in the way athletes perform and the way the sport is played. To excel at any sport, mere athleticism is not enough, and competitors need to develop good technique to run, swim or row faster than their opponents. A lot of the time, good athletic performance is based on proper control and coordination of movement. Other times, it helps to have a good understanding of the physics taking place, and then using this knowledge to your advantage.

Imagine a world where Newton’s law did not exist. As a sports fan, I sometimes think while watching a professional baseball game, what would happen if the basic laws of physics would cease to exist. Taking into context the parabolic trajectory of a fly balls, if no gravity acted as a force on the ball, fielders would have to guess where the ball would land. Every ball hit would basically be a home run due to the lack of forces acting on the ball hit. 

Every football player would tackle with the same force, because their height and weight wouldn’t come into play.  Swimmers would never have to move their arms or legs for their initial diving force would be enough to take them from one side of the pool to another due to the lack of friction and the opposing force of the water.  A tennis ball would hit the racket and just fall to the floor instead of flying over the net and received by the player’s opponent. Every athlete would have an equal chance and their skills and effort will become independent of their victory.  The pure competition of the game would rendered useless and the world of sports would become just a series of identical plays.  The thrill would be gone.

Newton’s laws are what give sports and athletes life.  Properties like momentum, friction, mass acceleration, action and reaction are what provide the element of surprise.  For many of us, these laws are obvious and we tend to take them from granted.  By default the 130 pound boxer is no match for the 180 pound challenger.  Assuming a constant acceleration, the force of the punch would be lethal on the smaller body just because of the amount of mass.

If physicists did not know with what angle a turn at a racetrack must be built with, racecars would simply drift and sweep off the tracks. This phenomena is explained by circular motion. Not only includes car racing, it also includes track and field, baseball running or ice-skating, the motion of objects in circles is a common observation of sports viewers around the world. Like any object moving in a circle, the motion of these objects that we view from the stadium bleachers or watch upon the television monitor are governed by Newton's laws of motion.

It is interesting to apply everything we learn in class into real world applications. The laws of physics not only give competitiveness and excitement, but they provide safety to the players and athletes involved. They make the overall experience enjoyable to every fan around the world.