I think I'm gonna get one of these and make some proposition bets:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KHCuXN2F3I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KHCuXN2F3I
Elliptical Pool Table
- Thread starter PoolBum
- Start date
:thumbup:
Glad I checked it out - quite cool
Glad I checked it out - quite cool
My % of Bank Shots might pick up a bit.
Can you guess what happens if you shoot directly away from the hole in any direction?
pj
chgo
pj
chgo
Do I get just one guess Pat? I will say, "They don't go in".
I was wondering the same. If he shot in any other direction, would the ball make a couple of Banks and go the pocket. Doubtful right. They would go, but he would have to figure the angles much the same as on a regular table.
Someone went to a lot of work to build a table to prove some point that could have easily been proven by using someone like John Brumback, or any of the Bank Shot Artists and a real table.
He was instructing the viewers on how any normal Bank Shot is made. Too Hard and Too Soft. Something that everyone who gets serious about their Banks eventually teaches themselves.
I was wondering the same. If he shot in any other direction, would the ball make a couple of Banks and go the pocket. Doubtful right. They would go, but he would have to figure the angles much the same as on a regular table.
Someone went to a lot of work to build a table to prove some point that could have easily been proven by using someone like John Brumback, or any of the Bank Shot Artists and a real table.
He was instructing the viewers on how any normal Bank Shot is made. Too Hard and Too Soft. Something that everyone who gets serious about their Banks eventually teaches themselves.
Yes, since the spot and the hole are symmetrically located (on the ellipse's foci), shooting from the spot banks into the hole and shooting from the hole banks across the spot and then banks into the hole.
pj <- assuming ideal banks with no friction
chgo
interesting, I guess that if you start with a ball that is NOT on the "foci" (and use no English), you positively cannot bank it into the hole
?
Just read about this in the news. Strangest thing ever!
Here's another article about the elliptical pool table; in Wired magazine, no less: http://www.wired.com/2015/11/elliptic-pool-loop-round-billiard-table/
Here's another article about the elliptical pool table; in Wired magazine, no less: http://www.wired.com/2015/11/elliptic-pool-loop-round-billiard-table/
Attachments
I think the main point is to demonstrate something about ellipses. Of course cushions don't work like mirrors, so the demonstrator has to explain why the original idea doesn't actually work very well.
The main problem I see with the elliptical table is that you can't fire balls into the pocket as you can on a normal table. Maybe it would be better to have four normal pockets on the cushions on the axes. Or between the axes.
You need not start on a focus. Any shot along any line that extends through a focus will go in the hole.
I first saw an elliptical pool table in 1963 when I was about nineteen years old. It was coin-operated, and you had to put twenty-five cents in a slot to get the balls to come out. The devilish device had just appeared in the local pool room that morning.
A group of us were standing around the table, fascinated. We couldn't make out what in the world was going on. After we had been puzzling over it and trying shots on it for about a half an hour, the door of the room opened and Garland Hutchison, a veteran player and gambler and complete cynic, came in. We youth assumed that Garland knew the answer to all questions related to pool. We asked him, "Garland, what's the idea of this game."
Garland gave the table a dismissive look, sniffed, and said, "To get quarters in that slot."
A group of us were standing around the table, fascinated. We couldn't make out what in the world was going on. After we had been puzzling over it and trying shots on it for about a half an hour, the door of the room opened and Garland Hutchison, a veteran player and gambler and complete cynic, came in. We youth assumed that Garland knew the answer to all questions related to pool. We asked him, "Garland, what's the idea of this game."
Garland gave the table a dismissive look, sniffed, and said, "To get quarters in that slot."
So if you don't aim through one of the focus points initially, and you could hit an infinitely long shot, and assuming ideal rebound, would you eventually cross one of them? would the final path be the cb rolling around the perimeter? At some point in my early 40s my brain gave up on trying to see such questions through to the answer. Clickbait has made my brain go soft. I was better prepared for the zombie apocalypse a decade ago.
(I'm thinking rolling around the perimeter.... reduce to a circle and think about Spirograph. Which my daughter just got for her birthday. Which is probably in a pile with Xmas toys. Argh brain now tired)
Think about it like this:
The only way to pocket a ball is for the ball to cross a focus. The hole is at one focus. Imagine you somehow suspend the ball just over the hole and shoot. ALL paths away from the hole go one bank and cross the other focus. Now run the video in reverse. ALL paths that lead to the hole also cross the other focus. Without knowing anything at all about the math involved, we can figure out that all banks that cross a focus go into the hole, and any bank which doesn't cross a focus will NEVER go into the hole. Ignoring english, speed, etc...
Now if you go out to an infinitely long shot, any shot that crosses a focus or lays on that line will forever bounce back and forth between the two foci. Any shot which doesn't cross a focus will forever miss.
There is a subfield of mathematics called billiards that is exactly about particles reflecting perfectly off boundaries and studying their paths. Those who collect real billiard books have to be cautious or they will end up with such books.... Without knowing anything at all about the math involved, we can figure out that all banks that cross a focus go into the hole, and any bank which doesn't cross a focus will NEVER go into the hole. Ignoring english, speed, etc...
For example....
I need another physics book like a need another hole in my head, but I might be tempted...
I might have an extra copy of the above in case you lose your mind out of the extra hole.I need another physics book like I need another hole in my head, but I might be tempted...