-The Rock physics

The “rock” is the center of the curling game and incorporates many concepts of physics. The rock has a doughnut shaped running surface, as shown in the diagram. This surface slides across the ice, rotating in the direction shown in the diagram. The friction of the running surface on the ice creates the curling motion of the rock. When the rock is “thrown” or slid, it tends to tilt forward, thus creating more friction on the front of the rock and less friction on the back. The curling stone tends to tip forward as it slides down the ice, exerting a greater pressure on the front ice than the back.

More pressure on the front means that the front of the stone causes more melting (momentarily) than the back. Consequently, the front of the stone will have less friction than the back. For a counter-clockwise rotating rock, the sideways motion at the back will be to the right, and the friction at the back (which is greater than on the front) will be to the left. The rock will then curl to the left. Therefore, if you rotated the rock clockwise (shown in diagram), the rock would curl to the right. A good representation of the forces on the rock is shown below.

“In a counter-clockwise rotating rock, the "sideways" motion at the front is to the left (dashed arrow), and the sideways friction on the front is to the right (solid arrow). The sideways motion at the back is to the right, and the friction is to the left. Because the friction at the back is greater than at the front, the rock curls to the left” (Shegelski).

Image- http://www.icing.org/game/science/shegelsk.htm

The ice surface of the curling rink is not just flat, it is covered in pebbles. These are not regular rock pebbles, but they are made from frozen water. To pebble the ice someone walks down the ice in the center and sprays small droplets of water in a side-to-side motion. This is to reduce the amount of surface contact of the rock and the ice, in turn creating less friction. This makes the rock travel further on the ice. A good sample of this is shown in the diagram below.

Image(1^st and 3^rd)- http://www.mycurling.com/Articles/whydoesitcurl.html

=Physics behind Curling

=The Broom Physics

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