The Science of Football

Paper Summary:

The paper handles the physical issues of drag and terminal speed within the context of throwing and kicking a football. The paper approaches the topic as if the world on the surface of the earth is a uniform fluid and anything moving through this fluid is subject to the force of drag. Accordingly, the paper explains that moving footballs must deal with these forces in specific ways in order to travel the greatest distance.

From the Paper:

"Any time an object moves through a fluid it is subject to a retarding force acting opposite to the direction in which it is traveling. This force is called drag and since our atmosphere is essentially a fluid, every object we observe to be moving relative to the atmosphere is experiencing drag. Generally, drag tends to reduce the speed of any moving object and in some situations is just considered to be friction. However, quite unlike friction, "The drag force increases as the speed of the object increases," (Tipler 133). In fact, "At low speeds, the drag force is approximately proportional to the speed of the object; at higher speeds, it is more nearly the square of the speed," (Tipler 133)."

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