Maybe we could paraphrase that last part into a T-shirit that reads:
Don't f*ck with old men
They know stuff
Lou Figueroa
The Physics of Pool
- Thread starter lfigueroa
- Start date
Maybe we could paraphrase that last part into a T-shirit that reads:
Don't f*ck with old men
They know stuff
Lou Figueroa
Well, regrettably, 50 years of experience can and often is beaten but thanks anyway, 4pointer, I get your point, lol.
Lou Figueroa
I always think the opposite
I always think I should have wrote a book when I was a teenager and knew it all. Then I could have coasted my whole life off of the proceeds!:grin:
Hu
I always think I should have wrote a book when I was a teenager and knew it all. Then I could have coasted my whole life off of the proceeds!:grin:
Hu
PJ, you hit the nail on the head, sir.
Its really hard, almost impossible to tell you how I play but, pretty easy to say why.
Even the top pros usually have a hard time explaining "how" but, they can for sure explain the "why".
Notice that all the cue tip contact time is performed with a level cue and again no real defined speeds.....just soft, medium, and fast.
There is nothing related to when the cue butt is elevated which will change the contact time.
With a level cue, the force from the cue causes the the direction of the CB to be 90 degrees to the table.
Raise the butt of the cue. Now the force from the cue is trying to cause the direction of the CB to go into the table, not perpendicular to the table surface, especially if you can only hit high on the CB......like when the CB is close to another ball requiring to stroke jacked upped.
This increases tip contact time. It also requires what I call raising tip stroke.
So, to say that cue tip contact tip is a certain time without testing with the cue butt at different elevations, something that happens in the real world, is wrong.
Oh...I was a test engineer for many years.......I know what valid and invalid test scenarios look like.
There is nothing related to when the cue butt is elevated which will change the contact time.
With a level cue, the force from the cue causes the the direction of the CB to be 90 degrees to the table.
Raise the butt of the cue. Now the force from the cue is trying to cause the direction of the CB to go into the table, not perpendicular to the table surface, especially if you can only hit high on the CB......like when the CB is close to another ball requiring to stroke jacked upped.
This increases tip contact time. It also requires what I call raising tip stroke.
So, to say that cue tip contact tip is a certain time without testing with the cue butt at different elevations, something that happens in the real world, is wrong.
Oh...I was a test engineer for many years.......I know what valid and invalid test scenarios look like.
Nothing is "truly" scientific in any of the tests when a "human" is performing the tests.
Nothing is "exact" and "measurable".
You need some sort of "machine" or "robot" that can be calibrated to perform the "same" routine with defined and exacting specifications with virtually no deviations.
Hitting the ball "soft" isn't like hitting the ball "EXACTLY at XXX speed with the cue elevated at EXACTLY XX angle"...etc., etc., etc.
Not to say that some things can't be figured out from "rudimentary" experiments.
Nothing is "exact" and "measurable".
You need some sort of "machine" or "robot" that can be calibrated to perform the "same" routine with defined and exacting specifications with virtually no deviations.
Hitting the ball "soft" isn't like hitting the ball "EXACTLY at XXX speed with the cue elevated at EXACTLY XX angle"...etc., etc., etc.
Not to say that some things can't be figured out from "rudimentary" experiments.
Dwell time doesn't matter
One of the "truths of AZB pool physics" holds that a dwell time with a variance of up to forty percent total doesn't matter.(Plus or minus fifteen to twenty percent.) Somehow I have always suspected it does. I look at all the things that are transferred with a roughly .001 second hit and somehow I have to think that the varying times of contact do matter. I have always suspected that the lower angles that pinch the cue ball between tip and table matter since they matter quite a bit with more elevation! I have learned that understanding physics and mechanical design are two different things so I sit back and don't bother trying to explain things that people haven't been able to explain in thirty years plus now!
Always interesting the things we share in common with others on AZB. I set up the testing for several small R&D companies. Was VP of one of them. I'm pleased to say that I never assembled an invalid test set up. Sometimes tests failed but that was because I was overruled by purely office types that were guilty of what we often see on AZB, incomplete data. In the case of the testing, things that should have worked on paper didn't because of a lot of small variables that weren't in the math. Easier to build it and test than to play with the math sometimes but frustrating to build something after other people with other companies had tried the same thing over and over and failed.
One thing interesting. One of my friend's inventions or what seemed to me like a discovery was rejected by the SBIR program while it was under patent. The inventor is dead now and the military has been using SCP under another name. May have used it as early as Desert Storm but we couldn't document it.
I had a lot of fun in R&D. Four and a half days a week I could stare out the window and nobody knew if I was working or daydreaming. Fridays everybody knew that unless I was in crisis mode I was planning the weekend fishing trip!:thumbup:
Hu
One of the "truths of AZB pool physics" holds that a dwell time with a variance of up to forty percent total doesn't matter.(Plus or minus fifteen to twenty percent.) Somehow I have always suspected it does. I look at all the things that are transferred with a roughly .001 second hit and somehow I have to think that the varying times of contact do matter. I have always suspected that the lower angles that pinch the cue ball between tip and table matter since they matter quite a bit with more elevation! I have learned that understanding physics and mechanical design are two different things so I sit back and don't bother trying to explain things that people haven't been able to explain in thirty years plus now!
Always interesting the things we share in common with others on AZB. I set up the testing for several small R&D companies. Was VP of one of them. I'm pleased to say that I never assembled an invalid test set up. Sometimes tests failed but that was because I was overruled by purely office types that were guilty of what we often see on AZB, incomplete data. In the case of the testing, things that should have worked on paper didn't because of a lot of small variables that weren't in the math. Easier to build it and test than to play with the math sometimes but frustrating to build something after other people with other companies had tried the same thing over and over and failed.
One thing interesting. One of my friend's inventions or what seemed to me like a discovery was rejected by the SBIR program while it was under patent. The inventor is dead now and the military has been using SCP under another name. May have used it as early as Desert Storm but we couldn't document it.
I had a lot of fun in R&D. Four and a half days a week I could stare out the window and nobody knew if I was working or daydreaming. Fridays everybody knew that unless I was in crisis mode I was planning the weekend fishing trip!:thumbup:
Hu
Another Stellar post Lou, really enjoyed it
And I know a guy who killed another guy outside the pool hall on Magnolia Blvd in Riverside, CA.
He bashed him over the head with a house cue during an altercation in the parking lot.
The police report didn't mention what weight the cue was, what kind of tip it had, or even if the head deflected by a lot.
Guess there were no pool scientists in the pool room that night.
I aim my cue stick like I aim a rifle. Nothing more. Nothing less. I’ve had a lot of success with this approach. After all what your trying to do is shoot ducks on a pond that 41/2 x 9.
I have a hard time stroking the cue when the butt of it is propped against my shoulder?
How do you avoid this?
Also, does your cue have a lot of "kick"?
If so, what kind of "recoil pad" do you have on the butt of it?
We are all doing a very complex physics problem before we shoot, some consciously, some subconsciously or shortcut based on prior good or bad results. Nobody avoids the laws of physics just like we stay plated on the earth whether we understand or even believe in gravity.
Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
Recoilless Jackson Cue with an oversized clip $m@r+@$$.
I used to try that!
When I was young and bent better I sometimes pretty much laid on the cue and sighted down the cue for paper thin cut shots a table length away. It often worked but I gave it up. I don't really remember why, I think it was when they lowered tables six inches while I was away from pool for twenty years!
All of the talk of aiming a pool stick has led me to wonder, how do we aim a baseball bat or tennis racket? Aim them we do, applying speed, spin, and direction in the blink of an eye. We take long seconds to aim a pool cue but can any of us explain how we really do it?
One of our many errors in pool is aiming down the center of the stick to the center of the tip when we are hitting the cue ball with the edge of the tip. The center of the stick is the natural thing to aim with yet it is the wrong thing to aim with much of the time. The next time I go to the pool hall I will keep on aiming with the center of the stick most of the time. My mind is happier with that!
While considering insanity or at least the odd and absurb, I have practiced on a snooker table with a pool cue several times lately. The pool cue seems to have about the same deflection as a steel bar causing me to miss fairly simple shots. Yet I noticed great accuracy with the shots I deliberately curved the cue ball into the back of an object ball like a baseball pitcher's curve ball whipping across the outside corner of the plate. My aim by "feel" was better than my aim by construction brought over from pool tables with different cloth, balls, and pockets.
The "why" escapes me, the "how" is undeniable. The difference was between trying to work with the conscious mind and letting the unconscious do it's thing. Once it has been fed enough information from the conscious the unconscious is many times more powerful. Yet the shots where we need it most are the ones that we are often least willing to turn it loose, trying to muscle the shot into working with our conscious mind.
Success is as simple and hard as the old pool saying, do our thinking standing. Conscious thought should be finished when we are down on a shot.
Time to make the donuts, err, mow the lawn. I love grass in February, March, and April. By mid July the affair is well over!
Hu
When I was young and bent better I sometimes pretty much laid on the cue and sighted down the cue for paper thin cut shots a table length away. It often worked but I gave it up. I don't really remember why, I think it was when they lowered tables six inches while I was away from pool for twenty years!
All of the talk of aiming a pool stick has led me to wonder, how do we aim a baseball bat or tennis racket? Aim them we do, applying speed, spin, and direction in the blink of an eye. We take long seconds to aim a pool cue but can any of us explain how we really do it?
One of our many errors in pool is aiming down the center of the stick to the center of the tip when we are hitting the cue ball with the edge of the tip. The center of the stick is the natural thing to aim with yet it is the wrong thing to aim with much of the time. The next time I go to the pool hall I will keep on aiming with the center of the stick most of the time. My mind is happier with that!
While considering insanity or at least the odd and absurb, I have practiced on a snooker table with a pool cue several times lately. The pool cue seems to have about the same deflection as a steel bar causing me to miss fairly simple shots. Yet I noticed great accuracy with the shots I deliberately curved the cue ball into the back of an object ball like a baseball pitcher's curve ball whipping across the outside corner of the plate. My aim by "feel" was better than my aim by construction brought over from pool tables with different cloth, balls, and pockets.
The "why" escapes me, the "how" is undeniable. The difference was between trying to work with the conscious mind and letting the unconscious do it's thing. Once it has been fed enough information from the conscious the unconscious is many times more powerful. Yet the shots where we need it most are the ones that we are often least willing to turn it loose, trying to muscle the shot into working with our conscious mind.
Success is as simple and hard as the old pool saying, do our thinking standing. Conscious thought should be finished when we are down on a shot.
Time to make the donuts, err, mow the lawn. I love grass in February, March, and April. By mid July the affair is well over!
Hu
Lou, are you really 85 years old?
lol.
Dan, when I dust these babies off I typically update them a bit, change a word here and there, and maybe remove a comma or three.
Lou Figueroa
but nice catch