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Physics Of Football Essay

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In the fall of my sophomore year of high school, my brother had just made the soccer team so you could find us in the backyard kicking a soccer ball around. We would pass, practice corner kicks, and shoot for hours. Sometimes our sister, who was about five at the time, would join us, which mostly slowed things down. One fall afternoon after school, we were kicking the ball around and my little sister decided she wanted to play. She ran about ten feet in front of my brother for a pass and he waved for her to go further back. He continued to wave her further back until she was at the other end of the yard, about 30 yards. My brother kicked the ball pretty hard and it started to curve. My little sister noticed the ball moving extremely fast in her direction so she started to run away from it. Since the ball was curving to the right and that was the way she was running, it looked as if the ball was chasing her. Even with her great efforts to run away, the ball hit her and knocked her off her feet. My brother and I couldn’t help but laugh at how hard she tried to get away, but with the curve of the ball, she ran right into it. From that moment I have wondered what the physics were to the ball curving. Why does a soccer ball curve in some instances and not in others? What …show more content…

The ball is going to move or curve in the direction of the lower pressured side because of the Magnus force. According to physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com, “Whenever a ball is spinning through the air, the Magnus ‘force’ will push it in a direction perpendicular to the direction of movement”. In our example before, the airflow on the right side of the ball will move in a forward direction and slightly downward. While the airflow on the left side of the ball experiences friction of the airflow and the rotation in opposite directions, a force is created “perpendicular to the direction of

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