Calling All Pool Scientists

Scott Lee said:
The Jacksonville Project, performed 20 years ago by Bob Jewett and others, determined that dwell time between tip and CB was 1/1000th of a second (a quarter of the time it takes to blink your eye as a reflex). Jewett mentioned that a soft tip might possibly increase the dwell time to 2/1000th's...still insignificant. No type of shaft or stroke can significantly affect this. It's still all about how a particular shaft or tip "feels" to the individual.
Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com
Click to expand...

If it is now all about the "feel" to a specific individual, then there is no need to change anything except your "feel".

That is what happens when you play with "one" cue/shaft/tip over a long period of time. You adjust to the equipment...the equipment does NOT adjust to you.

Once you acquire a "feel" you like, you find a cue that fits "YOU" and "YOUR" style of play. It doesn't matter what it looks like, how much it costs, who made it, or what it is made of.

To me, feel = TRUST!

If you play with any piece of equipment (cue/shaft/tip) long enough you will learn its playing characteristics and learn to trust it to do what you have "previously done with it through your learning time with it".

If you can run multiple racks fairly consistently, then you are pretty much in TUNE with that cue and have learned to trust it to do what you want. If you have ran three racks in a row and then miss a ball, it ISN'T the cue. It is YOU, unless the cue somehow malfunctioned, such as a miscue. Even if it miscues, it could be your stroke, the tip needing scuffed a bit, the chalk wasn't sufficient, or something of the sort. The length of the cue, the weight, the dimensions, and the materials didn't change between shots...so was it YOU or the cue?

If it works for YOU, then that is the cue/shaft/tip for YOU. Of course you can play with other cues/shafts/tips, but they won't have your "feel" until you play with them long enough for them to become your NEW "feel".

According to scientists, sometimes "placebos" work. If your cue is your "placebo" and it works...then you don't need another medicine to cure your problem. If you keep trying different "medicines" to cure what is already "working", then maybe the problem is YOU and not the medicine.

If people "think" they can feel the tip on the cue longer and the ball reacts the way they thought and they can "control" it, then they don't need a real pill...the placebo may be working just fine.
 
ElCorazonFrio said:
They have snake-oil salesmen.
Click to expand...

Not sure that is a fair statement. They have marketing reps, and use similar tactics as other advertisers outside of the pool world. So while yes, their marketing might be suspect, it is the nature of marketing. A personal habit of mine is to spend my money with companies that don't advertise as much or at all. Those are typically the companies that are putting out quality and letting the product speak for itself in my experience.
 
Jaden said:
You DO realize that you just called a 100% difference insignificant???

If it changed from 10/10000th of a second to 12/10000ths of a second, you might be able to say that's a negligible difference, although it's still 20%, but a 100% difference is NOT negligible.

Jaden
Click to expand...

I don't know about this case, but a doubling can be very insignificant. Health type junk studies do this all the time. Do XYZ and you are 50% more likely to achieve ABC. The problem is, the results they have will be 2/100 for the reference trial, and 3/100 for their own agenda. So, their agenda was a 50% improvement. But its sh!t and meaningless if one were to look at it carefully, and not just read the bs media headlines.

Sorry for ranting, but this happens all the time.
 
Jaden said:
You DO realize that you just called a 100% difference insignificant???

If it changed from 10/10000th of a second to 12/10000ths of a second, you might be able to say that's a negligible difference, although it's still 20%, but a 100% difference is NOT negligible.

Jaden
Click to expand...
I wouldn't disagree that a 100% change is very significant. But, contact time itself doesn't matter to any significant extent. (The reason a soft tip stays in contact longer is that the force between the tip and the ball develops more slowly. It's not as if the same degree of force is acting over a longer period of time.)

What does matter is how far off center you can hit the ball without miscuing.

Jim
 
Ron Swanson said:
It is on a negligable amount.
Click to expand...

It isn't a negligible amount. EVERYTHING that the cueball does is caused by the contact time of the tip on the cueball. If you double the time, it stands to reason that different things will happen.

Let's look at it this way: The earth is about 4.5 billion years old. You might live to 80 or so. 80/4500000000 is insignificant, but if I offered a way for you to live to 160, you'd think it was pretty significant.
 
HawaiianEye said:
Other than Bob Jewett, who were the other "scientists" involved?

Was it like the Manhattan Project?
Click to expand...

What's up with the quotes? Are you suggesting Bob and others aren't men of science? Has there ever been a time on these internet forums that those who speak scientifically aren't men of science?

The Jacksonville Project was made with plenty of disclosure, BD Articles, internet USENET discussion some 15+ years ago. It's not like it was some super secret thing.

http://www.sfbilliards.com/Misc/jax_bd150.pdf
 
Last edited:
The key here is CAN be...

iusedtoberich said:
I don't know about this case, but a doubling can be very insignificant. Health type junk studies do this all the time. Do XYZ and you are 50% more likely to achieve ABC. The problem is, the results they have will be 2/100 for the reference trial, and 3/100 for their own agenda. So, their agenda was a 50% improvement. But its sh!t and meaningless if one were to look at it carefully, and not just read the bs media headlines.

Sorry for ranting, but this happens all the time.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the key here is can be...It is useless to use contact duration alone as a measuring stick as to the negligibility of difference in contact duration.

It's a fallacious argument to say because the contact time is so small that even doubling it has no significant effect.

If you want to say there is no significant effect, then SHOW it, but don't just say it is just because the contact duration is small relative to walking your dog or driving to the market.

Jaden
 
Last edited:
Cornerman said:
What's up with the quotes? Are you suggesting Bob and others aren't men of science? Has there ever been a time on these internet forums that those who speak scientifically aren't men of science?

The Jacksonville Project was made with plenty of disclosure, BD Articles, internet USENET discussion some 15+ years ago. It's not like it was some super secret thing.

http://www.sfbilliards.com/Misc/jax_bd150.pdf
Click to expand...

I never questioned whether anybody was a "scientist" or not, I'm just not sure there are ANY pool scientists.
 
Jaden said:
You DO realize that you just called a 100% difference insignificant???

If it changed from 10/10000th of a second to 12/10000ths of a second, you might be able to say that's a negligible difference, although it's still 20%, but a 100% difference is NOT negligible.

Jaden
Click to expand...

Before this goes to far, Scott didn't say that a 100% difference (0.001s vs 0.002s) is insignificant or not negligible. He said that 0.002sec is "still insignificant."

Those two aren't the same thing. What Scott *is* eluding to is that whether the contact time is 0.001s for a hard tip, , and 0.002s with a soft tip, but those facts and metrics are inconsequential and insignificant. Only those that want to believe that contact time increases spin will confuse the issue. The simple reality is, it's insignificant. The amount of spin is directly related to force * time (impulse). And like many things in nature, things are conserved. The swing that the player executes has a certain amount of energy, regardless what the tip looks like. So, on contact, the measurement of the time is nothing but a measurement. The time goes up and force go down for a softer tip; the time goes down and the force goes up for a harder tip. The change in time didn't "do" anything; it was the result of the available energy.

Freddie <~~~ getting
 
Jaden said:
If you want to say there is no significant effect, then SHOW it
Click to expand...
It's customary to show the presence of something, not the absence of it. So far, nothing indicates a significant difference in effect, despite some careful tests that should have shown it if it exists.

If you want to say there is a significant effect, then SHOW it.

pj
chgo
 
Cornerman said:
Before this goes to far, Scott didn't say that a 100% difference (0.001s vs 0.002s) is insignificant or not negligible. He said that 0.002sec is "still insignificant."

Those two aren't the same thing. What Scott *is* eluding to is that whether the contact time is 0.001s for a hard tip, , and 0.002s with a soft tip, but those facts and metrics are inconsequential and insignificant. Only those that want to believe that contact time increases spin will confuse the issue. The simple reality is, it's insignificant. The amount of spin is directly related to force * time (impulse). And like many things in nature, things are conserved. The swing that the player executes has a certain amount of energy, regardless what the tip looks like. So, on contact, the measurement of the time is nothing but a measurement. The time goes up and force go down for a softer tip; the time goes down and the force goes up for a harder tip. The change in time didn't "do" anything; it was the result of the available energy.

Freddie <~~~ getting
Click to expand...

Your comment kind of reminds me of photography.

If you manually change the "timing" of the camera's shutter speed from 1/1000th a second to 2/1000ths a second (or any other speed for that matter) it DIRECTLY affects the "focal length", which directly affects the exposure of the picture.

If you double the shutter speed, you need to halve the focal length. If you halve the shutter speed, you need to double the focal length. If your camera does this automatically or you do it manually, the exposure remains "constant", but the picture will not be the same...it may look CLOSE, but they are different when you analyze the picture.

There is no right or wrong settings. The correct "exposure" is whatever happens to work to get the "effect" you are trying to achieve.

I don't know the "ratio of effect" to what happens when a cue ball is struck with half the contact time or double the contact time, but I'm sure it is noticeable by "feel".


I kind of equate hitting a cue ball with a "softer" tip to what happens when a car with a "softer" front end (crumple zone) hits another car at a constant speed and weight.

If a car with a softer crumple zone hits another car, it remains in contact with the second car longer because it takes time for the crumple zone to compact down enough until the force is sufficient enough to repel the car back because it can't "crumple" any more.

I think the same thing happens with softer tips...they stay on the ball longer because it takes a bit longer for the tip to "bottom out" (maximum crumple) before the opposing force rebounds back. A harder tip has less "crumple" and therefore compresses less and rebounds the cue ball off the tip faster.
 
HawaiianEye said:
I never questioned whether anybody was a "scientist" or not, I'm just not sure there are ANY pool scientists.
Click to expand...

Well... for one thing, what you need for these experiments are engineers, not necessarily scientists. Bob Jewett (Electrical Engineer) and Jim Buss (Aerospace Engineer) certainly fit the bill. Both know pool (national champion and master cuemaker, respectively)

I guess I'm not sure what you're really saying. What's a pool scientist?

Mike Page is a Physical Chemistry professor, a pool/billiard instructor, a pool hall proprietor, and a damned good player.

Dave Alciatore is a Mechanical Engineering professor, and has shared more billiard science knowledge than anyone. I think Dave's body of work speaks for itself.

Ron Shepard is also Physical Chemistry professor, A-player, and was the first to give us a physics view of pool and squirt with APAPP (Amateur Physics for the Amateur PoolPlayer).

Freddie
 
Cornerman said:
Well... for one thing, what you need for these experiments are engineers, not necessarily scientists. Bob Jewett (Electrical Engineer) and Jim Buss (Aerospace Engineer) certainly fit the bill. Both know pool (national champion and master cuemaker, respectively)

I guess I'm not sure what you're really saying. What's a pool scientist?

Mike Page is a Physical Chemistry professor, a pool/billiard instructor, a pool hall proprietor, and a damned good player.

Dave Alciatore is a Mechanical Engineering professor, and has shared more billiard science knowledge than anyone. I think Dave's body of work speaks for itself.

Ron Shepard is also Physical Chemistry professor, A-player, and was the first to give us a physics view of pool and squirt with APAPP (Amateur Physics for the Amateur PoolPlayer).

Freddie
Click to expand...
Don't forget Coriolis who was a brilliant mathematician and physicist who wrote an amazingly complete book dealing with the physics (science) of cue sports in 1835 (originally written in French but translated to English in 2005 by Nadler). Coriolis wasn't an AZB'er, but he certainly made an amazing contribution.

There are also many other scientist who have contributed to the knowledge base of pool science. Many of their articles and books are referenced and linked here:

Billiards and Pool Physics Resources

Regards,
Dave
 
dr_dave said:
Don't forget Coriolis who was a brilliant mathematician and physicist who wrote an amazingly complete book dealing with the physics (science) of cue sports in 1835 (originally written in French but translated to English in 2005 by Nadler). Coriolis wasn't an AZB'er, but he certainly made an amazing contribution.

There are also many other scientist who have contributed to the knowledge base of pool science. Many of their articles and books are referenced and linked here:

Billiards and Pool Physics Resources

Regards,
Dave
Click to expand...

And let's not forget Fast Larry! :) :)

He was an AZB'er at one time.
 
HawaiianEye said:
I never questioned whether anybody was a "scientist" or not, I'm just not sure there are ANY pool scientists.
Click to expand...
A scientist is just somebody who relies on careful observation rather than impressions, appeals to authority, etc. to draw conclusions about what's going on. There are many right here on AzB. There are also many here who don't know the differences and think all that "science stuff" is useless gibberish - it is to them, so they don't realize what they're missing.

pj
chgo
 
ElCorazonFrio said:
On what planet is a 100% increase, or doubling anything 'insignificant'?
Click to expand...

Jaden said:
You DO realize that you just called a 100% difference insignificant???

If it changed from 10/10000th of a second to 12/10000ths of a second, you might be able to say that's a negligible difference, although it's still 20%, but a 100% difference is NOT negligible.

Jaden
Click to expand...

Here is another way of trying to explain what others have also said. You are calling something significant or insignificant solely based on the number or percentage change. Context is everything but generally the terms significant or insignificant are not measurements of the number change at all, but of how much impact or effect that change actually has, and it was certainly used in that same normal way in the quote that started this line of the discussion.

If you have two grains of rice for your dinner instead of one grain, I can assure you that even though it is a 100% increase it has no significance to how hungry you will feel or how much nutrition it provided compared to what you need. It is insignificant. Even if your dinner was 10 grains of rice, an astronomical 1000% increase, it is still insignificant. Significance isn't how much a number moved, but how much it mattered.
 
Last edited:
Scott Lee said:
The Jacksonville Project, performed 20 years ago by Bob Jewett and others, determined that dwell time between tip and CB was 1/1000th of a second (a quarter of the time it takes to blink your eye as a reflex). Jewett mentioned that a soft tip might possibly increase the dwell time to 2/1000th's...still insignificant. No type of shaft or stroke can significantly affect this. It's still all about how a particular shaft or tip "feels" to the individual.

Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com
Click to expand...


This is one major reason why I use hard tips exclusively (may as well) and if I can't get a
hard tip I'll just break with it for an hour or drop the cue (tip first) on the hard floor many many
many times.
I like the consistency of hard tips.
Soft tips are all over the place and very inefficient, medium little better.
Hard best............yes........FOR ME!
 
Patrick Johnson said:
A scientist is just somebody who relies on careful observation rather than impressions, appeals to authority, etc. to draw conclusions about what's going on. There are many right here on AzB. There are also many here who don't know the differences and think all that "science stuff" is useless gibberish - it is to them, so they don't realize what they're missing.

pj
chgo
Click to expand...

Lol. I know what YOU are missing, Patrick.

:)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top