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Other than baseball, my second favorite sport is football. While watching it or playing, you can notice a lot of physics incorporated into the sport. On of the major examples I can think of is it's relation to angled projectile motion. If you were to say the Giants had one more play to score the game winning touchdown and the quarterback needed to throw a 40 meter touchdown pass, infering that he throws the ball at an angle of 45 degrees. But, threw the ball with an initial velocity of 22 meters per second and the pass was caught at the same height it was thrown in 3 seconds. You then can determine if the pass made it pass was made it 40 meters or not. To solve this you would first use V(x)=Acos(theta). After plugging in the numbers you get 15.56 meters per second. After, you use the equation d=v(initial)t + (1/2)at^2. The (1/2)at^2 cancels out becuase a is 0 meters per second squared, and after you plug in the data you have, you get the distance to be 46.68 meter. Therefore, the pass made it passed 40 meters for a touchdown. Overall, this is the best example I can think of when I think of physics and football.

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FizziksGuy

Posted

Great example!  Sounds like there's a bit of an art to the quarterback knowing at what angle to throw the football so that it reaches the receiver at the optimal time and position!

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