Break Machine - Just a Question

BarTableMan said:

Build a simple piston driven cue machine that could break the balls with an exact speed and hit on the cue ball...use a magic rack with the balls in the same order...would/could the balls be broken in a repeatable layout fashion or no way?

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Depends on whether Dechaine is racking or not

Ask Joe Tucker.

Joe knows more about the Rack than most.

randyg

Things change. The balls get dirty, the cloth gets worn, the temperature and humidity changes. You'll be able to get pretty similar results but not exact.

The late George Onoda did an analysis of how balls move on the break. If you scroll down, you'll find it here: http://www.sfbilliards.com/Misc/onoda_all_txt.pdf

For an analysis of break patterns under perfect conditions, Virtual Pool software is useful. http://www.celeris.com/

Unfortunately, small changes can have a big effect on the break--what is usually called "chaos" (nonlinear dynamics)--especially the so-called "Butterfly Effect". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect

Even the gravity of a person near the table can have an effect! http://www.anecdote.com/2007/10/the-billiard-ball-example/

There is an interesting mathematical treatment here: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/1...d-break-of-a-perfectly-aligned-pool-ball-rack

Donnie Mills had a very repeatable break when he played SVB, he's a machine!

Bob Jewett did a study on this. His results indicated more then like 4 and results were unpredictable?

Bob Callahan said:

Even the gravity of a person near the table can have an effect! http://www.anecdote.com/2007/10/the-billiard-ball-example/

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I think that the idea that varying gravitational forces exerted by people standing around the table is only relevant to a mathematical treatment of the collisions on the table. That it could effect the motions of the pool balls in a way that could be even potentially noticeable to the human eye, or the final state of the table as it pertains to the play of the game, is not the case.

But we could always ask Dr. Dave to do the math.