sixpack said:I should clarify this. Think about parallel english first. The swerve is created by the force created by the kinetic friction between the cue ball and the cloth. With bottom left english, the bottom of the cue ball is pushing right against the cloth, which makes it go left. If you hit topspin, the bottom of the cueball is moving the opposite way, making it go right. Because the direction of spin is helping the cue ball move instead of fighting it, the resultant vector is not as far off of straight, but it will move right.
When I saw you referred me to Dr. Dave, I thought how could Dr. Dave possibly be so wrong? Then I realized that you were talking about collision-induced throw and I was talking about spin-induced throw. Since we were talking about BHE I thought that the contact point chosen would already account for CIT, so I thought you were referring to SIT.
Yes, CIT does increase for larger cut angles.
I agree with that. By the time you start analyzing all of it and figuring out everything though, won't your system become much more complicated and contain more opportunities to introduce errors than just judging those factors to begin with?
Cheers,
RC
On swerve:
There are two known mechanisms as cause. The first is the masse' effect as first explained by coriolis. The second one is the nap effect, which seems to be negligable on non-directional nap tables:
An article I wrote about it here: http://www.top147.com/magazine/2004007/2004007091316505557.htm
On snooker tables, side with top and bottom curve in the same directions, though bottom curves more due to the spin:speed ratio I believe.
With masse swerve, naturally the cue will hit down more on low shots.
I'm not sure about the explanation you gave...from what I could understand, I don't think it works the way you explained it.
On CIT and SIT:
I think the paper I linked to also has some graphs on SIT. I'm not sure if they are exactly what you were refering to.
On Complexity:
haha....such is the life of a billiard theorist
But seriously, I think a handful of rules could be memorized that could be immediately recognized in certain situation.For example, the rule I started this thread with would be quite easy to recall. eg. Harder shot with BE, Shorten Bridge Length or Swipe a bit with same Bridge Length.
With some practice and thinking, such a system could be very practical and grow increasingly accurate I believe.
If someone really wants to remember every variation of shot by feel and memory, that would seem a lot more complex to me. I have done it this second way for many years, and it can work ok, but often you tend to avoid certain shots that are hard to judge, or that you don't understand the alignment on.
With a smart system, inexperienced players may quickly adapt to making shots that challenge very experienced players, knowing even less about what they are doing than guys who have been trying to figure such shots for years.