champ2107 said:
I am curious to know what are the opinions of jay helfert, bob jewett ...
I posted this before. It doesn't exactly answer your question, but I think it applies.
[In response to a poster who claimed that physics and geometry gave incontrovertible standards for aiming systems.....]
Well, yes, but.... My experience is that the majority of people
cannot make the connection between abstract geometry (such as a
half-ball hit) and what happens while they play pool. It may
be true that cut angle is a continuous function of the fullness
of hit, but most people have neither use for nor understanding of
a concept such as "function of".
For such people, I think it is not helpful to go into any more
detail in a system than is required to draw their attention to
the shot. It is not important what the system is as long as they
believe in it and it sort of gets them into the right ball park.
Their subconscious will do the rest, as it does for all players
who can play a lick, Iron Willie and Virtual Pool excepted.
Ask players what the cut angle is for a half-ball hit and the
majority (or a substantial minority) will say 45 degrees. This
is in spite of their having shot hundreds of half-ball hits and
hundreds of 45-degree cuts but never in the same shot. Many
people need an explanation of what a "right angle" is for the
kiss-line for position play -- people have even built special
fixtures for the pool table to illustrate two perpendicular
lines. Most people are not geometrians.
Aiming is as much psychology as it is physics. Arguing that the
physics of a system is wrong doesn't prevent the psychology from
working, one way or another. On the other hand, it's not clear
to my why people who know a system works for them psychologically
argue it to be valid physically. There's no point.
You remind me of that Syndrome character from the movie The Incredibles - always trying to kill Mr. Incredible (Hal).
