the springiness of corked bats, Artemious Fowl, and languages

[Haggridd]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "joywitch_m_curmudgeon" 
<joym999 at a...> wrote:
> In answer to Cindy's question, there is no such thing, in physics, 
> as "springiness."  The writer may have been confusing it with the 
> concept of potential energy, which is stored in a compressed object 
> such as a spring or maybe cork, but that would be irrelevant in the 
> case of a corked bat, since it is the wood that is hitting the ball 
> and not any sort of matter that compresses.
>

Well, there is the matter of elastic collisions, which isn't 
operating here with ash or maple bats and a regultion hardball, 
anyway, but one could interpret "springiness" in that fashion.  Cork 
would modify that property anyway.


 
> Anyway, the only impact of corking the bat is to make the bat 
> lighter, which doesn't really help the batter because it tends to 
> decrease the mass (of the bat) more than it increases the speed (of 
> the bat as the batter swings it), so that the resulting force of 
the 
> impact between the bat and the ball is lower, not higher, and as a 
> result the distance the ball is hit is decreased, not increased.  
So 
> using a corked bat is probably counterproductive, although as 
someone 
> already said, the increased speed of the bat means that the player 
> can wait a little bit longer before he swings, which is an 
> advantage.  But you're talking about a game which is full of 
> superstition, so the myth of the corked bat may be more important 
> than the reality.
> 
> But, really, Cindy is right.  Why the hell doesn't Sosa paint his 
> practice bats red or something?
> 

Because Sammy was LYING.  It was an after-the-fact excuse to explain 
the presence of the corked bat.

 
> --Joywitch, who is also a diehard Mets fan

Let's Go Mets! (maybe not this year, though)
Haggridd
p.s. at least we'e better off than Amy Z., whose Expos are slated for 
the crapper (thank you Bud Selig).