Pool balls shrink in the cold, too;) (Precise data included)

[iusedtoberich]

OK, what happened there at 74°? Ugly result.

The short answer is I don't know why the temperature reading dropped at 74 deg. I noticed it also as I was taking the temperature.

The long answer is the infrared thermometer was kind of all over the place. I don't believe the ball actually got colder. In the colder temperatures, when it was getting warm rapidly, I would change a degree or more in only a few seconds. (That's why I only had whole numbers). On the later temperatures, once it started stabilizing, I recorded the decimal place on the thermometer. Even so, if you shifted the pointer on the thermometer, it would get a slightly different reading. Also of note, this only measures surface temperature.

I'm not too concerned about it, because the data as a whole follows the expected linear trend extremely well.

I chalk it up to limitations of my measurement methods

*Edit, I was also recording the temp of the micrometer frame. I wanted to see if it was changing, and possibly causing a measurement error. The micrometer was held in a frame, and I was handling it very little with my warm hands. Yet the temp fluctuated (without any pattern) on the frame. I really think its a limitation of the infrared thermometer, and what it actually "sees" when it reports back the temperature.

 

[Texas Carom Club]

Ah, but a guy could spray his cueball and an interference ball with a compressed air can and make the balls cooler and smaller. This could allow the cueball to get past the interference ball and pot the object ball, where before the cooling, he was blocked.



Jeff Livingston

:grin::grin::thumbup::thumbup::grin::grin:

 

[SignManiac]

When I lived in New York, I use to surf in the North Atlantic in February and I can attest that your balls will shrink from the cold. The water temperature was 34 degrees!

 

[Texas Carom Club]

Cold temps can shrink alot of things

In the shop we buy dry ice and pack parts in it some times when we have a pressed fit, so that the part just barley goes when it's froze then expands once in and ain't going no place


I'm talking steel
turned parts

AND use a torch on the mating part to open it up some as well

 

[DaveK]

Vietnamese and even some European Carom player's have told me they believe keeping the balls at a warm temp for Playing makes it easier

Keeping them under a light when not in use

Maybe that has to do with the correlation between coefficient of restitution and temperature :grin-square:

Dave

 

[pt109]

I can state with confidence that a warm golf will go farther than a cold one. …so I’d rather play with pool balls at room temperature.