Today I was playing ping pong at my friend's house and realized that many aspects of physics were in the game. When I serve the ping pong ball, my paddle makes contact with the ball causing the ball's acceleration to increase. Velocity also increases as the ball, whose initial velocity was zero, flies over the net. As the ball reaches my friend, the rate at which the ball is accelerating decreases, and velocity decreases. When my friend returns the ball, his paddle exerts a force upon the ball causing it to change direction and come back towards me. Because the direction and speed of the ball changes, velocity changes as well and becomes negative.
Playing ping pong also shows displacement which is the direction and distance of the shortest path between an initial and final position. Before I serve the ball, displacement is zero because it has not traveled any distance. The ping pong table is nine feet in length. As I serve the ball over the net, displacement changes. Once the ball reaches my opponent, displacement becomes +9.0 feet. As the ball returns back to me, displacement becomes negative. When the ping pong ball reaches its original starting position, displacement returns back to zero.
1 comment:
justin, you look like a pro ping pong player in that picture. you must hit the ball with such velocity that your opponent cannot return it due to having a slow reaction time.
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