Baseball's Sweet Spot - Bat Marimba

If you've ever hit a baseball, you know the feeling of a great hit. Before you even see the ball blast through the air, your body tells you: you've hit a sweet spot.

David Barker and exhibit developers at the Exploratorium created an exhibit that uses the same principle - but to make music, not hit home runs.

http://www.exploratorium.edu/baseball/

What's going on?
When you hit a ball just right, you've hit it on one of the three "sweet spots" of the bat. One of these sweet spots relates to vibration. Whenever an object is struck, it vibrates in response. These vibrations travel in waves up and down the length of the object. At one point, called "the node," the waves always cancel each other out. If you hit the ball on the bat's node, the vibrations from the impact will cancel out, and you won't feel any stinging or shaking in your hand. Since little of the bat's energy is lost to vibrations when this spot is hit, more can go to the ball. The node sweet spot differs from the "center of percussion" sweet spot. When a ball hits the node, you don't feel any vibration in your hand. When it hits the center of percussion, your hand doesn't feel any force pushing against it.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• baseball
• bat
• music
• marimba
• Giants
• Exploratorium
• sports
• node
• percussion