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March 23, 2012

Strange But True!

Q. How might the physicist on your soccer team explain the banana kick, a free kick that can find its curving way around a wall of seemingly impenetrable defenders?

A. When a ball is kicked without spin, the air passes symmetrically on both sides, but if it spins, the deflection of the air causes the ball to veer one way or the other, dubbed a “banana kick” because of the shape of the flight path, says Jearl Walker in “The Flying Circus of Physics.” Ideally, the ball should be launched at an angle of about 17 degrees with the ground and directed out of arm's reach of the end player on the wall and into the goal.


 
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