My Brother the Baseball God

Over the course of my blogs, you've met my brother Sean. Among his many talents, he can boast of 1 year of t-ball experience. So for this blog I decided to make him
come outside with me in the cold. We grabbed an old baseball bat and tennis ball to experiment with momentum.

I weighed both the tennis ball and the bat to derive their mass.

Bat: 0.181kg

Ball: 0.0585kg

Using logger pro to analyze the video, I found their velocities

Then I used these values in the equation to show the equal value of momentum

Values in above chart are bat velocities

Values in above chart are ball velocities

Unfortunately, the math does not work out as was intended for this blog. In the x direction, each side of the equation is significantly different in value. The magnitude of momentum is larger on the Vf side of the equation, which would indicate an increase in momentum, which is impossible because you cannot gain it out of nowhere.

I hypothesize that momentum was apparently gained due to a factor that I did not include in my system, such as wind or angle of the bat. However, it was still conserved in the scheme of the earth and universe.

The good news is that in the y direction, the momentum is clearly conserved as the velocities are transferred but the values are within a reasonable margin. Having equal momentum on each side displays that it was, in fact, conserved and not lost.

If I could re-do this experiment, I would find a way to control more variables, such as having my brother hit the ball off of a T, which would fix the angle. I would also use a meter stick in order to avoid pesky unit conversions.

I hope you enjoyed Sean's amazing baseball skills.