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June 6, 2008

Strange But True!

Q. What was the point of the Colorado Rockies baseball team placing balls in a high-humidity chamber for several months before games? Were they trying to cheat?

A. It was actually done in the name of fair play, says “New Scientist” magazine. The Rockies play in high-altitude Denver, where the thin air means batted baseballs travel up to 6 meters (20 feet) farther than at sea level. So the humidity chambers were an attempt to tame down the overexuberant orbs. Then a team of University of Colorado-Boulder researchers reported that the Rockies may have gotten things backward: Moisture may make the balls fly even farther. They found that two months in humidity of 30 percent-50 percent increased the diameter of the balls by 0.24 percent and their mass by 1.6 percent. While it's true the bigger, heavier, “squishier” balls come off the bat slightly more slowly and experience more drag, the extra mass more than compensates for these effects as the balls “take longer to decelerate,” and so carry farther. Moreover, the moist balls are harder for pitchers to curve and thus easier for sluggers to hit.


 
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