Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1913-07-08
PERFECT SPHERES
With All His Scientific Skill Man
Cannot Produce Them.


be thrown so that it will describe Won
derful curves during its progress
through the air is that every such ball
has surface made up of mountains.
valleys, craters, canyons. gorges. plains
and other irregularities of the surface
that, when the difference in size is
taken into consideration, makes the
surface of the earth seem like plate
glass.
If It were possible to make perfect
sphere-if 1t were possible to make
baseball with an absolutely smooth sur-
face and an exact sphere-no pitcher
in the world could make it curve. The
very best pitchers baseball has ever
known or probably ever will know
could not make the ball deviate hairs
breadth in its fight.
And so while 1t is partly in the art
or knack the professional pitcher has
in holding and releasing the baseball
as he throws it, it is also due to the
fact that baseball has wonderfully
rough surface against which the air
catches and turns it that gives it the
curve.
1t you pass your hand over q plate
glass it moves smoothly with nothing
to retard it. If you pass your hand
over an unplaned board you can feel
the splinters we call them.
You cannot move your hand as easily
over the board. This is the same prin-
ciple with the baseball. There is a
roughness in its surface that catches
in the air and forces one side about or
retards that side. This has but one
result-to make the baseball leave its
straight course, and in doing this it de-
scribes a curve.
This does not detract in the least
from the cleverness of the pitcher who
can so accurately judge his muscular
control as to make baseball curve up
or down, right or left. But the fact
remains that it is the roughness of the
baseball that makes all his pitching
clevcrness possible.
Take n brand new league ball in
your hand. 1t looks to be n perfect
sphere-that is, absolutely even and
uniformly round and rs smooth as
glass" And it may be as smooth as
glass, for glass also has rough sur
face.
Put a baseball under the most pow
erful microscope, enlarge it microscope
cally 10000 diamcters, and what do
you see? The very thing mentioned in
the first paragraph of this article. The
surface is rough. 1t looks like the
landscape in the Alps or Yellowstone
park or any other rough section of the
earth. 1t has peaks. ranges, ridges,
valleys, plains and holes, gulcheS and
all sorts Of uneven places, and if the
/ earth could be made as small as Il
/ baseball it would he practically n per-
feet sphere and absolutely smooth.
This is because the highest mountains
of the earth and the deepest valleys
would be millions upon millions of
times smaller i'll comparison with the
rough uneven places on baseball If
either the earth were reduced to the
size of a baseball or Il baseball enlarg-
ed to the size of the earth.
/ II this were not true the earth would
not revOlve so regularly upon its axis.
1t would perform an lin shoot or
"out shoot and curve off through
space.
Even the billiard ball has surface
much rougher in comparison to its size
than the surface of the earth. and we
refer to a billiard ball as about the
smoothest thing known. "As smooth
as a billiard ball" is n well known
smile. For the same reason that a
curved. n perfectly smooth and per
fectly round billiard ball could not b6
made to curve on the table 1t would
not take English as billiard players
call it when they make ball go for
ward and then roll backward or in any
direction just by the manner in which
they strike it with a chalked cue.
This fact of roughness causing it tc
spin becomes all too evident when @
player forgets to chalk his cue and
plays several shots thereafter. If the
leather tip of the cue becomes shiny
it will slip on the ball. There is NJ
purchase with which it can take hold
But chalk is sticky stuff, and the gran
ules are large, so that well chalket
cue has a very rough surface. and this
rough surface of the tip Of the cue fits
into the rough projections on the ball
and thereby a ball can he given 10
of twist. In order to accomplish thi:
successfully. moreover, the billiard
cloth nap must be new and therefore
rough.
During recent experimentation Will
regard to the kinetic theory of case
q Belgian scientist desired to find gu
how perfect sphere could be made fl
order that by the clashing of these to
gether an idea might be secured Of III
effect OF the collisions of the spherica
atoms that make up a gas. The pro!
ect had TO be abandoned at last be
cause no machinery could be construct
, ed that would turn out perfeC
sphere artificially. and nature has n
, perfect sphere of large size in all he
many forms Of matter Perfect disk
oOuId ha made hI1t a rOuud hill wa