Hitting
Figure 7: Bat flexing
Hitting
There is very little that can mach the excitement one experiences when they hit a baseball flawlessly. This experience although exhilarating is very difficult to do. In the major leagues the ball takes less than a half a second for the ball to cross the plate once the pitcher has released the ball. Given that it takes a quarter of a second to complete a swing, a tenth of a second do decide where to swing, and the time for the ball to cross the plate is about a hundredth of a second. The actual collision lasts for about a thousandth of a second. This happens incredibly fast. In fact, hitting a 90 mph fastball is considered hardest thing to do in any sport according to many experts. "If a person from another planet was told what's involved ... they would say it's impossible," says Porter Johnson, a physics professor at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. [1]
Hitting the baseball perfectly is often called hitting the sweet spot. This location varies on all bats, but it is generally considered to be about 5 to 7 inches from the end of the barrel. When you hit an object with a wood bat at the sweet spot you are hitting the fundamental node. When the bat meets the baseball the collision causes the bat vibrate. Hitting a baseball on the wrong part of the bat can be painful, especially on a cold day. If you hit the ball at the fundamental mode the bat doesn’t vibrate. In physics the collision of the bat and the ball is considered elastic. An elastic collision between two objects is one in which the total kinetic energy and total momentum is the same before and after the collision. When you swing a bat you are doing work. If the collision causes the bat to vibrate it is doing work and hence it is using energy. Since the energy is conserved, the energy from the collision must equal the energy of the system after the collision. The collision causes the bat to vibrate hence there is less energy that can be transferred to the ball because energy from the collision was used in the vibrations.
There is very little that can mach the excitement one experiences when they hit a baseball flawlessly. This experience although exhilarating is very difficult to do. In the major leagues the ball takes less than a half a second for the ball to cross the plate once the pitcher has released the ball. Given that it takes a quarter of a second to complete a swing, a tenth of a second do decide where to swing, and the time for the ball to cross the plate is about a hundredth of a second. The actual collision lasts for about a thousandth of a second. This happens incredibly fast. In fact, hitting a 90 mph fastball is considered hardest thing to do in any sport according to many experts. "If a person from another planet was told what's involved ... they would say it's impossible," says Porter Johnson, a physics professor at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. [1]
Figure
8: Hitting in action
Hitting the baseball perfectly is often called hitting the sweet spot. This location varies on all bats, but it is generally considered to be about 5 to 7 inches from the end of the barrel. When you hit an object with a wood bat at the sweet spot you are hitting the fundamental node. When the bat meets the baseball the collision causes the bat vibrate. Hitting a baseball on the wrong part of the bat can be painful, especially on a cold day. If you hit the ball at the fundamental mode the bat doesn’t vibrate. In physics the collision of the bat and the ball is considered elastic. An elastic collision between two objects is one in which the total kinetic energy and total momentum is the same before and after the collision. When you swing a bat you are doing work. If the collision causes the bat to vibrate it is doing work and hence it is using energy. Since the energy is conserved, the energy from the collision must equal the energy of the system after the collision. The collision causes the bat to vibrate hence there is less energy that can be transferred to the ball because energy from the collision was used in the vibrations.
Image
9: Sweet Spot
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