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Show PROFESSOR TELLS SECRET OF CURVES New York. Aug. 14. The "Avhy" of a baseball curve should not longer be a mystery, at least to the students of the Columbia university s summer school. In a lecture on the "'science of baseball curves" Professor W S. Franklin explained It all as follows: "The whole secret of a curved ball lies in the relation of the pressure to the velocity and the spin that the pitcher ghes It as It leaves his hand "Daniel Bernoulli!, a Swiss physi cian, who died In 1S72, was the man who discovered the principle. He was observing a stream of water that flowed through wide pools and narrow schoals. In the pools he soon found lhat the pressure was very great while the velocity was almost nothing; noth-ing; in the shoa.ls he said that the velocity was very swift, while tho pressure had aim' t disappeared. "This is the principle that governs the flight and curve of a ball If the ball sails straight through the air wJth no spin, the air is pushed aside equally in all directions and the ball Is directly under tho control of gravity gravi-ty so far as its curve is concerned and it soon falls to he ground' Whereas, if the front of the ball is given a -downward spin, there is In addition to the straight forcing aside of the air a circulation motion of the air around the ball This motion being be-ing over and then under the ball tends to increase the speed with which the air passes beneath the ball and retards it above the ball." |