Refs with Gloves—a science question
- Thread starter RichSchultz
- Start date
Billiard balls are conductive according those guys testing...they talked about using some
some carbon fiber mix to nullify it.
I have picked up a snooker ball and felt the static charge...’course, I don’t know where
it came from...me or the ball.
The majority of the kicks/skids I have had was when I played snooker...the thicker the
cloth, the more frequent.
But at very rare times, I’ve had a skid that SOUNDS different...this is what caused my
inquiries about this subject.
Most of them sound funny to me - kind of a "clunk" sound. I've learned it's the sound of the CB falling back onto the slate after "climbing" the OB a little bit.
pj <- no snooker or napped cloth (please)
chgo
The paper linked above seems to say that charge might get onto the cue ball in two ways: from the tip contact and from rubbing on the cloth. On the page Dr. Dave linked to above, there is a video of Dr. Dave rubbing a cue ball on cloth and then attracting small pieces of paper with it.
Once the charge is on the cue ball, it has no easy way to leave because the cue ball is an insulator (but not quite perfect). The authors of the paper did measure how fast charge bleeds off the cue ball and it lost about half its charge in seven seconds under their test conditions.
Here's Bill Nye with a static electricity demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oU8Fe6846d4
For those interested, the static demo and tests start at the 3:44 point in NV D.16 – Pool ball cut-induced throw and cling/skid/kick experiment.
Enjoy,
Dave