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Physics of Billiards
Chris May writes "Amateur Physics for the Amateur Pool Player seems to have been around a while, but I have never seen it mentioned here. I know it would appeal to much of the Slashdot community-- 109 pages of complex Newtonian mechanics, on a trivial but informative subject. Hard to believe someone went to all this trouble." I'm having painful flashbacks - must - suppress - memories.
Don't base any big money winning shots on these equations. These only hold true until .1c or so -- then they kinda start to fall apart.
Slashdot editors are constantly making references to the math, science and especially computer science courses they took in college. I have yet to hear a single one wax nostalgic about an English or creative writing class.
Why is this?
--Shoeboy
I wonder if we'll eventually see a computer/robot vs. Human pool match a la Gary Kasparaov & Deep Blue? A pool playing robot would be simple enough (in comparison to something like Deep Blue) that any big engineering college should be able to put one together. Put it up against a world champion pool players, and you've definately got something for pay-per-view.
....these physics actually apply during tournaments. I think that during actual competition, everything reverses itself, all laws of physics go wacky, and a magic invisible goblin sits in each pocket and diverts all balls away from the pockets.
Er wait ... doesn't somebody have a patent on this?
Good for you and your pals!
Have you ever played pool (or billiards, a rather different game) for drinks or money? I have done that, with about even success (you win some, then you lose some, it all works out just about even). But getting _really_ good at it takes real focus. I've seen a very good player. It was impressive. A good player can run 150 balls, straight pool, without a miss, and make it look easy. That's good! Sort of like programming skills... There's a ten or more multiplier between patzer and master, in terms of effectiveness.
On a good night, I can hold a pool table against all comers. If drinks are bet, I drink for free, in the US, Middle East, and Austrailasia. But I'm not exceptionally good.
My wife, however, used to take guys for real money at pool. Part of it was the way her skirt hiked, leaning over the table. But she was also skilled, and ruthless about it.
A CIO I once worked for had previously made his living playing pool, for a while when between jobs. I did not seek out an opportunity to play poker with this individual....
Let me tell you. Back in my college years I would carry this document with me wherever I went. To call it dog eared would be an insult to any dog. The corners were mangled, the text was blurred on many a page. Countless nights I spent visually caressing this wonderous text -- to the punishment of red eyes in the morning. I clearly remember nearly failing a 3rd year physics final exam because I had spent the last 3 nights studying the object ball throw sensitivity diagram on page 45 instead. Or how I would always give myself a chuckle by looking at the computer program I created to solve for the table of values required for problem 5.6.. Ahh, to be so young and clueless! Such unoptimized code! Regardless, I hope all of you can explore and hopefully enjoy this textbook of wonders. A text worth its weight in gold, if you were to print it onto an atom.
Feed The Sponge
Where do I want the balls to be at the end of my shot, so that if I miss my opponent will have a hard time, and if I don't miss I will have an easy shot. How can I get the balls to such a position. And, better pool players probably look a couple of steps ahead: if I shoot here she might be able to shoot there and then there and then there.
Anyway. Just calculating where the balls go if you hit them a certain way is a good start. But maybe it is a bit akin to knowing where a chess piece will get to if you move it a certain way?
During my freshman year in college I would always skip physics class to play pool. Somehow this seemed like a legitimate use of my physics time, since it was at least SOMEWHAT related to the subject matter. Sorta. Well, it was an adaquate excuse for MY purposes. :)
:)
In any event, had this manual been available, I might have actually thought to consult it, and I might have actually learned some physics during this time period, although I did get rather good at playing pool.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
function location() {
if (my.state != "coding" & my.conscious == true)
{
return ("at the pool hall");
}
}
and while at the pool hall (Amsterdam Billiard Club, NYC) I have watched and played many professional pool players.
Yes, pool is governed by the laws of physics (even when your opponent snaps the nine-ball in three consecutive times).
No, knowledge of these physical laws will not make you a professional player.
Take a bank shot, for example. If you assume that the angle of deflection of the object ball into the rail equals the angle of deflection, calculate that angle and shoot, there's still a good chance you won't make the shot. One reason: from table to table the hardness of the rails varies.
A few other variables which your ruler and protractor probably won't account for:
crap in the air (humidity affects the speed of the cloth)
crap stuck to the balls
crap on the table (damn that shard of chalk!)
crap on your cue tip (chalk/no chalk?)
crap going on around you (people talking about the likelihood of you missing)
crap on the line (the money you're about to give the guy who's kicking the crap out of you.)
So, when you get right down to it:
pool == physics + Random (crap);
and the good players have a better sense of smell.
"ooh, I got you all wet..." "yes, but my martini's still dry."
The first robot ever to play snooker (related to the game of pool) was developed under a team led by Professor Khorosh Khodabandehloo at the University of Bristol, UK.
The Bristol snooker robot played a famous match against the then world snooker champion, Steve Davis of the UK. The robot, a customised IBM Model 7565, was severely handicapped because its operating envelope covered only about 87% of the table and also because freeplay in its joints limited its mechanical accuracy and repeatability. The strategy part of the robot was quite sophisticated having been based on advice from Steve Davis himself. It was able to make forward and reverse analyses of states of play based on support logic programming (related to but more powerful than fuzzy logic programming). The cue it used to hit a ball was actually a pneumatic piston powered by compressed air. Davis beat the robot easily! As an undergrad student, I helped to design, implement and test the robot's image processing software using the now defunct Automatix AV4 Image Processing System once made by Robotic Vision Systems, Inc..
The whole project was filmed and shown on BBC television on the Q.E.D. science programme of 16th March 1988. Extraordinarily there are now no webpages at Bristol University to celebrate this pioneering robotics project. Professor Khorosh Khodabandehloo has left Bristol University to run his own robotics consultancy. One of his former research assistants, Ken Ho, however, has made webpages about the Bristol snooker robot: here and here.
Scroogle