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Have you and a friend ever stood on opposing sides of a spinning playground merry-go-round and tried to throw a ball back and forth? According to Einstein and GR, that is equivalent to being near a neutron star that is attracting the ball - the ball's path curves! So the idea is to place an entire baseball
(or cricket) field (or whatever cricketeers call a field) on an enormous rotating turntable and play the game while it spins. This will give new meaning and amplitude to the idea of the curveball.
This can be generalized to placing any other sporting platform on the big turntable - high dive; swimming pool; soccer/football (although I doubt that would much affect things since they just kick it around randomly anyway).
Parabolic Pool Table
[hippo, Mar 06 2013]
Parabolic Mini-golf
[hippo, Mar 06 2013]
Parabolic Sports
[hippo, Mar 06 2013]
Motor-racing already using this idea (kind of)
http://en.wikipedia...arnival_sideshow%29
[pocmloc, Mar 06 2013]
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Annotation:
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<science>The ball does not actually curve in the example you give. It only appears to curve because the observers (you and your friend) are in motion relative to the ball's straight trajectory. </science> [-] |
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The idea of swimming events taking place in a spinning pool is intriguing, though. It brings to mind any number of old adventure movies where entire ships are swallowed up by massive whirlpools! I'll give it a bun just for that! [+] |
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I guess that means I'll remain neutral. |
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Ice hockey on a rotating rink would be interesting, especially if the speed and direction of rotation was subject to abrupt, random changes. |
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I believe (but do not know for sure) that cricket is played
on a pitch, a term which suggests an interesting new angle
on this idea. |
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//It only appears to curve because the observers (you and your friend) are in motion relative to the ball's straight trajectory.//
[Canuck], you are right but only in a colloquial kind of way. According to General Relativity (GR), there is no difference between experiencing gravity and being in an accelerating frame. This is the Principle of Equivalence, which is the foundation of general relativity. According to your colloquial view, when a baseball is thrown in a roofed-over ballfield (on Earth), it really goes in a straight line, but only a clever observer knows that really the ballfield is (or could be) on an accelerating spaceship, so the ball only appears to curve. According to GR, there really is no difference!
So the post correct from a <science> point of view: That is, in the frame of two players (and Einstein insisted that you are free to pick your frame), the ball really does curve.
By the way, if Einstein were wrong, then GR is wrong; then the whole GPS system wouldn't work. But it does work, and relies on just this kind of Equivalence Principle thinking.
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//All those parabolic Sports links// Yes I knew of those (did my due diligence, I did), and that's why I didn't post my great new idea for a parabolic ice rink, with a curved surface. I realized that the point is not the slope of the surface, which would make skating funner, but what happens if the skater loses a boot or a puck which then flies through the air. |
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On a related note, there's a new 'extreme sport' which is
essentially a skating race on an iced-over snowboardcross
course. 4-8 padded and helmeted maniacs on hockey
skates race head-to-head around banked turns and over
jumps...hilarity ensues. It has a really stupid name that I
can't remember. |
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