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80th out of 184 books
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147 voters
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The Physics of Baseball: Third Edition, Revised, Updated, and Expanded
Blending scientific fact and sports trivia, Robert Adair examines what a baseball or player in motion does-and why. How fast can a batted ball go? What effect do stitch patterns have on wind resistance? How far does a curve ball break? Who reaches first base faster after a bunt, a right- or left-handed batter? The answers are often surprising -- and always illuminating.Thi...more
Paperback, 192 pages
Published
May 1st 2002
by Harper Perennial
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Excellent, of course!
This was a gift from Jacki years ago. It is a physics textbook, at least in the early going. However, I have a new policy that I will finish a book that I start, no matter how long, boring or tough.
We'll see if he ever talks about baseball and stops talking about Magnus forces and Navier-Stokes differential equations to describe fluid flow around a curving baseball.
Nope, it never really talked about anything but physics. It needed more humor, more anecdotes or more theo...more
We'll see if he ever talks about baseball and stops talking about Magnus forces and Navier-Stokes differential equations to describe fluid flow around a curving baseball.
Nope, it never really talked about anything but physics. It needed more humor, more anecdotes or more theo...more
Perfect elasticity, 10% effect of Coors Field and 20/15 vision to pick up the bite of a curve. All things that are possible for some, but thought experiments for me, brought to life by this book.
Interesting science, but it can't explain the beauty of a well-executed hit and run or why I could never hit a slider.
The title says it all. Interesting stuff. I still need to read the last few chapters.
Super-nerdy, fascinating account of why baseball is the way it is. Great.
It is pretty much what the title says--a look at the physics behind baseball. It's interesting, but not quite as accessible as I think the author intended. At least, it was a bit challenging for me. But that could just be me. Also, he devotes a majority of the time to batting, and the physics of batting, which is interesting, but spends less time on pitching, which is the part I found more interesting. Or at least wanted more insight into.
This was a very easy read - I read it in about an hour at the bookstore and was surprised to find it was quite interesting. Like baseball? Like Physics? Then this is your book to read in your hammock wearing nothing but boxer shorts and sipping an umbrella drink. You will feel smarter after reading it; promise.
It was too flippant about the baseball and the physics, and confused "few words" with "explained for novices" too often. I'd be more interested in seeing some of these arguments extended, and in seeing them done more fully (ie, a look at the drop in a curveball, and not just the horizontal movement).
I got this book from one of my roommates in college. As you would expect from the title, it's a different and interesting way of looking at baseball, strictly from the physics sense. If you're interested in the "underground science" of baseball, then this book is for you.
Claire S
marked it as to-read
Maybe will have this be my first getting-back-into-Physics-for-first-time book, now that my daughter is approaching a year of it.. Since I sorta like baseball also.
This book is worthwhile but a little too hard for me to understand. Written by a physicist who got interested in baseball by trying to see how the sport works.
I started out as a physics major in college, so this book was a natural for me. Warning -- if you didn't like science in school, this probably isn't the book for you.
Too wordy. I wanted diagrams, charts, etc. Not all that fun to read if you don't have a strong physics background.
Some parts of this book are really interesting. Others make for slow reading.
bart giamatti was a cooler guy than bud selig
My brain no work with numbers--graphs. Ow.
A GREAT book
Garret Craig
marked it as to-read
Megan
marked it as to-read
Tyler Maher
marked it as to-read
Tiffany
marked it as to-read
Richard Newman
marked it as to-read
Dan Crowley
marked it as to-read
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