What happens to your balls: a real poll

What happens when you try to bounce a phenolic ball off a hard surface?

  • It'll break

    Votes: 10 14.9%

  • It wil bounce like a baseball

    Votes: 30 44.8%

  • It will bounce like a superball

    Votes: 27 40.3%
  • Total voters
    67
  • Poll closed .
Black-Balled

Black-Balled

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
What happens when you take a phenolic pool ball and throw it at award surface, like parking lot or sideawalk?

Does it break, bounce like a baseball, or bounce like a superball?

If you not vote, you not good.
 
Bounces like a baseball. I've thrown many down in disgust in hard-floored poolrooms for about 45 years.
 
In my experience, it will bounce like a superball.

I used to work the 2am-10am shift at the pool room and there was a box of spare pool balls behind the counter, maybe 100 in it.

The place would often go dead between about 3-6am and Ricky g. And I took our balls outside...and I will say, there were (are?!) about 40 of em up on the roof.

Good times.
 
If they bounced like a superball when you throw them hard, they'd bounce like a superball when you drop them... which they don't.

There's a physicist from Australia who has analyzed all kinds of ball-to-ball reactions, from baseballs to tennis balls to pool balls to superballs. He has come up with a lot of very interteresting data that definitely applies to our game, as well as to the question at hand. Worth Goggling the guy, way too many papers for me to look up and link to.
 
Australia? Wtf? Every thing is bakkards there. Gimme some real science.

My experience is far different. The roof of the building was prob 20' off ground and the pool balls went 2x higher. Not possible with a baseball, I do believe.
 
WHERE are you?!?! get your ass on that 2-wheeler & start peddling...! SJM will be here tomorrow. :happydance: we can FILM your pole exposé for AZB & i can get a pic w/ you on-the-lips....
 
does my garage floor count? If so bounces like a basketball with a sharp staccato sound tat.....tat...tat..tat.tat.tat.tat.tat and then rolls under the refrigerator
 
more like a superball

I'd say a lot more like a superball too. Probably not quite as much but certainly a lot more bounce than you can get with a baseball.

It is worth noting that a beer mug about three-quarter full will slow the ball considerably. Works fine as long as it isn't my beer.

Hu
 
Black-Balled said:
Australia? Wtf? Every thing is bakkards there. Gimme some real science.

My experience is far different. The roof of the building was prob 20' off ground and the pool balls went 2x higher. Not possible with a baseball, I do believe.
Click to expand...

OK... can I change my vote? :embarrassed2:


(Semi) real science:

I wasn't about to go smashing my beautiful Centennials on the cement floor, but then I remembered I have an anvil with a nice, smooth face to drop them on. Nothing like using 150# of steel to see how stuff bounces.

Took my blue circle CB over to the anvil and dropped if from about 6" up. Damn if the thing didn't bounce almost all the way back into my hand!

End of science experiment. No CBs were injured in this test.


I was going by my experience with the way they bounce off a pool table, but I forgot that the slate is suspended on the frame and has some give to it. Plus, it's got cloth stretched over it. Not so with a slab of cement. What can I say? I never worked the 2AM to 10AM shift at the pool hall and got bored out of my mind.

So, maybe not exactly like a superball, but a heck of a lot more bounce than a baseball.
 
Black-Balled said:
What happens when you take a phenolic pool ball and throw it at award surface, like parking lot or sideawalk?

Does it break, bounce like a baseball, or bounce like a superball?

If you not vote, you not good.
Click to expand...


They bounce like a super ball! If you are not careful when you bounce it on the sidewalk it will bounce back really hard and hit you in the mouf!!!:eek:
 
You forgot option 4 in your poll:

4. The ball will give birth to another ball.
 

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From much experience with this at Jack & Jills once contacting a face or head they drop like a lead sinker. Otherwise I've seen old pool balls bounce an inch or two and modern balls like a super all.

With that said : ALOT OF the newer stuff bounces like crazy.
 
Black-Balled said:
In my experience, it will bounce like a superball.



I used to work the 2am-10am shift at the pool room and there was a box of spare pool balls behind the counter, maybe 100 in it.



The place would often go dead between about 3-6am and Ricky g. And I took our balls outside...and I will say, there were (are?!) about 40 of em up on the roof.



Good times.
Click to expand...


So taking advantage of dead time by playing didn't cross your mind before bouncing pool balls off the pavement? Oooooookayyyyy. On a side note try a red circle cue ball sometime, it's even livelier than the rest when given the bounce test.
 
Colonel said:
On a side note try a red circle cue ball sometime, it's even livelier than the rest when given the bounce test.
Click to expand...

I'm real curious about that. The phone I'm getting is supposed to make super slo-mo videos (300 fps). I'm going to gather up various cue balls and record how high they bounce off my anvil when I drop them all from the same height. Should explain a lot about why they react the way they do.
 
I'm not sure if it'll break (depends on the velocity of the ball), but it's pretty obvious it will NOT bounce like a baseball, so you could scratch that off the possibilities.

The high number of votes for baseball suggests to me that not too many people have had much experience with baseball (or baseballs). Collisions with baseballs are relatively inelastic compared to collisions with billiard balls, which are highly elastic.

Imagine hitting the CB into an OB ball completely square using a hard stop shot (CB after collision doesn't move). The resulting OB velocity will be fairly close to the initial CB velocity before impact, indicating that the collision is highly elastic. And the goal of superballs is maximum elasticity.
 
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