Racquetball is a very dynamic sport full of trigonometry,
physics, and a need for athletic ability. However,
these things are not generally thought of when playing the
sport. Racquetball is a very high intensity sport that
exemplifies the fact that physics is part of our intuition,
that the laws that apply to us all are simply things that we
take for granted, and have known since we were in
kindergarten.
In the midst of a round of
racquetball, you, but mostly your brain, must calculate where
the ball will land so you can adjust where you will be before
it gets there. You must intuitively know where on the
wall the ball will hit before you hit it, all the meanwhile
your opponent is doing the same thing, but trying to counter
you and your own calculations. While this all is
complicated enough, what adds to the equation is the fact that
the ball you are hitting, is extremely elastic.
What you must keep in mind is that there
is always conservations of momentum. So all the force
you put into hitting the ball is transferred into the ball
which is transferred into whatever it is hitting.
However, if it is being transferred into the wall, you will
not see a noticeable difference in the momentum due to the
fact that the ball's mass is not sufficient to overcome the
mass of the wall. In turn, this sends the ball flying
back at you and the calculations begin all over again.
Given the fact that these forces are
working on the ball, and force that you are putting into the
ball while hitting it is actually very great, the ball while
it is motion has an incredible amount of kinetic energy, and
has a very great potential of injuring you or your opponent if
the proper protection is not worn. Given that this is an
elastic equation, and momentum must be conserved, if the ball
happens to hit you in say......the eye, all that momentum gets
transferred directly there. There are rumors the float
around saying that the ball can form to the socket of your eye
and and create enough suction to pull out your eye, although I
have found nothing to actually substantiate this rumor.
I do know for a fact though that the force of the ball is
great enough that you may very well lose your vision if hit
directly.
