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A 3-Credit Undergraduate Course at Johns Hopkins University
By Dr. Muhammad Ali Yousuf
Page updated on: May 12, 2019
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While watching sports you must have felt that your knowledge of physics is just not enough to understand all aspects of them. In this course, you will learn which additional forces are at play in different sports and why a curve ball curves? or why a ping pong ball dunks? You will learn how a tacit knowledge of the physics of projectile motion helped athletes Bob Beamon and Dick Fosbury made their place in Olympics history. You will also understand the use of energy and power in baseball, basketball, cycling etc. You will discover how, by keeping the temperature of the Velodrome at London Olympics at 84F, the planners had given cyclist an edge over the others. These days, athletes are competing for fractions of a second, or even a millimeter to win, and science is hard at work in improving their performance. Learning these concepts will not only allow you to understand the interplay between these two fields of science and sports; you will also be able to contribute to the field later.
This is a full-semester course which starts with the assumption that you have taken only HS physics. A few review sheets will be available and key concepts will be reviewed in the class too. By the end of the course, you will:
The real history of the subject is difficult to trace and the reader is referred to other texts. Here we would point out the 'modern history' of the subject. In early 1850s the subject of rotating artillery shells was explored by the German professor Heinrich Magnus. In this project he investigated sideways deflection of artillery shells which were rotating. In 1877 Lord Rayleigh wrote a paper on the irregular flight of a tennis-ball. It can be found here.
You may also go back to my main page, http://pages.jh.edu/~maliyou1/
Starting with an introduction to basic concepts in physics learn why a curve ball curves, why a ping pong ball dunks, how the speed and temperature of bobsled critically define its trajectory and dynamics, etc. The course will try to build general understanding of physics needed to explain various sports in a greater depth and to appreciate the amount of science and engineering that goes into designing sporting equipment.
We will be using the Top Hat (www.tophat.com) classroom response system in class. You will be able to submit answers to in-class questions using Apple or Android smartphones and tablets, laptops, or through text message.
You can visit the Top Hat Overview within the Top Hat Success Center which outlines how you will register for a Top Hat account, as well as providing a brief overview to get you up and running on the system.
An email invitation will be sent to you by email, but if you don’t receive this email, you can register by simply visiting our: course website
Note that the Course Join Code is 920003.
Top Hat will require a paid subscription, and a full breakdown of all subscription options available can be found here: Pricing.
Should you require assistance with Top Hat at any time, due to the fact that they require specific user information to troubleshoot these issues, please contact their Support Team directly by way of email (support@tophat.com), the in app support button, or by calling 1-888-663-5491.
The following video will prepare you before coming to the class.
Alan Nathan: Physics and Baseball: An Intersection of Passions, http://youtu.be/aoMiOakuteg.
| Week | Topics (Chapter numbers refer to the recommended text) | Course Material |
| 1 | Setting up the scene | A. Warm-Up: Basic Concepts (Scientific Notation, Units and Conversions) B. Estimation methods based on sport photos C. Racing, Mathematically (Speed, velocity, acceleration and their graphical representations, Phelps in Beijing, Bolt in Berlin, rope climbing, etc.) D. Introduction to sport video analysis (Tracker). |
| 2 | One and Two-dimensional kinematics, Forces | A. Net Force: Dwight Howard Illustrates (How things interact, the physics of Dwight Howard Dunk, sideways traction, imaginary forces) B. Punts, the Fosbury Flop, and Other Projectile Motions (What are punts, football punt’s range, hang time, etc. Shot-put. a comprehensive study of projectile motion and human projectiles.) |
| 3 | Rotations and collisions | A. Curveballs, Foul Shots, and Bent Kicks (Buoyancy, drag, sideward forces, aerodynamic forces, more complicated aerodynamics in sports.) B. Game Changers: Collisions in Sports (Collisions, physics of a football tackle, gentler pursuits: Bowling, dribbling and driving, etc) |
| 4 | Energy and Elasticity | A. Energy in Sports: Bursts of Power (Bouncing basketball, efficiency, energy accounting in sports, Behdad Salimikordsiabi’s clean and jerk, etc) B. Energy and Timing in Elastic Equipment (The physics of archery, Zdeno Chara’s slap, Bungee-Jumping) |
| 5 | Rotational Dynamics and Winter Sports | A. The Physics of Cycling (Rotational Motion, sustained human power, Talansky drives the bike, power output.) B. Physics of ice and snow C. Figure skating, curling |
Supplementary Chapters from the Recommended Text
Reference Books (in random order)
Gold Medal Physics: The Science of Sports Author: John Eric Goff Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press Year: 2010 ISBN: 978081893223
An Introduction to the Physics of Sports Author: Vassilios McInnes Spathopoulos Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform Year: 2013 ISBN: 978-1483930077
Popular Mechanics - Why A Curveball Curves: The Incredible Science of Sports Author: Frank Vizard Publisher: Hearst Books Year: 2014 ISBN: 978-1618371225
Physics with Video Analysis Authors: Priscilla Laws and others Publisher: Vernier, Inc. ISBN: 978-1-929075-11-9
The Dynamics of Sports: Why Thats the Way the Ball Bounces Author: David Griffing Publisher: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company; 4 edition Year: 2000 ISBN: 978-0787271299
Mathletics: A Scientist Explains 100 Amazing Things about the World of Sports (For reading and discussion sessions in the evening) Author: John D. Barrow Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition Year: 2012 ISBN-13: 978-0393063417
Projectile Dynamics in Sports: Principles and Applications, Author: Colin White Publisher: Routledge, London Year: 2010 ISBN-13: 978-0415473316
Contributions from Readers of this site
We are thankful to many of our readers for taking interest in this website and suggesting even more interesting links and ideas. Here are just a few valuable contributions. We'll be adding more soon. Each subsection contains the name of the person/orgaization making the contribution.
Contributed by Ted Lindblom of Barnet Dulaney Perkins Eye Center
"Here is a link to "How Baseball Players See a Fastball" published by Barnet Dulaney Perkins Eye Center which details the science behind a baseball player being able to hit a fastball pitch. It highlights the amount of time it takes a fastball to travel to home plate vs. the amount of time it takes to blink and a player's ability to predict movement, demonstrating how truly amazing the hitting process is: https://www.goodeyes.com/bdp-news/how-baseball-players-see-fastball/.Here are some more links which may help students:
Contributed by Clayton Hudson, Communications manager for SaveOnEnergy.com
"I was searching for educational science websites and came across your page. We have created a free interactive guide to Kinetic and Potential Energy Our guide is easy to follow and contains numerous graphics that assist with the comprehension of the material."Contributed by Prof. Don R. Mueller on his work (Physics professor and former pro baseball pitcher)
"Concerning my work in tennis, which includes new ways to hit (serves and ground-strokes) and new racket innovations was covered briefly in the NY Times (2018) humorously in cartoon form: http://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/11/sports/tennis/don-mueller-rackets.htmlI wrote about my various racket designs (and functions) in this LinkedIn article: various racket designs (and functions)
News item from my Physics of Tennis event at the Wayne Racquet Club (NJ)
Finally, I show off a little ambidexterity in this next article along with my Two-racket Tennis friend from LaLa-land who was happy to have me include his photo in The Buffalo News. I do enjoy a rousing game of what I call Two-racket Tennis"
Some other Physics of Sports Courses and their Websites
Following links, taken from the website "Real World Physics Problems" are extremely useful:
Videos
These short video clips are for actual classroom presentation and can be used for activities and group discussions about a particular sport. They may also become the basis for a research project. Keep in mind that if you need to really study a topic, you will need to search for "high speed video of ..." to find good videos which you can analyze with a video analysis software.
General Websites
Physics of Computer Games
Online games
Experiments
Some publications of great value to this course:
Specialized Sports Papers
The objective of this section is to provide ideas on doing simple experiments using easily available hardware and software:
The following PhET and other simulations each has some relevant physics concept explained:
The following SimScale simulations have some relevant physics concept explained:
The timing of this course is such that it will end just before them as the 2018 Winter Olympics will begin on: Friday, February 9, and end on: Sunday, February 25. Hence you are encouraged to explore these sports during this course and then use your newly gained knowledge to understand different sports during Olympics.
You can also go back in time and see what happened in Sochi Winter Olympics 2014. There are 15 sports played during Winter Olympics. These can be snow-based, or ice-based.
Following sports are represented in Winter Olympics:
The next Summer Olympics will be held in Tokyo in 2020.
You can also go back in time and see what happened in Rio Summer Olympics 2016.
Following sports are represented in Summer Olympics:
If you have come to this page (or this part of the page) thinking that this is the CTY's (Center for Talented Youth) course of the same name, please understand that it is not.
However, I am the course mentor for that course too and hire instructioanl staff to teach that course. If you have worked with CTY in the past, or will be a TA/INST for this course in near future, you might already know me. The information here can be of value to you too as all these resources can be used there. You just have to understand that the audience is different and lectures here are not as interactive as they should be for young CTY students.
More information about CTY course can be found at the home Page for Physics of Sports offered by CTY
If you are looking for summer TA positions for this course at CTY, you may apply online and let me know via email address given below. The course is offered at UC Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, California) and Roger Williams University (Bristol, Rhode Island) sites and CTY provides room and board on site. Travel to the site is NOT included.