Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1913-09-20
PERFECT SPHERES
With All His Scientific Skill Man
Cannot Produce Them.
THE CURvING OF A BASEBALL.

It Is Possible Only Because the Ball Il
an Imperfect Globe and In Compare
son With Its Size Much Roughel
Than tho Surface Of tho Earth.
The real reason why a baseball cal
be thrown so that it will describe won
derful curves during it's progress
through the air is that every such bal
has a 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 n perfect
s%phere-if it were possible to make a
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 a hairs
breadth in its flight.
And so while it 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 a baseball has a wonderfully
rough surface against which the air
catches and turns it that gives it the
curve.
1t you pass your hand over a plate
glass it moves smoothly with nothing
to retard it. If you pass your hand
over an unplaned board you can feel
the neutrality-suspicious. we call them.
You cannot move your hand os easily
over the board. This is the same prin-
ciple with the baseball. There is a
%roughness in it's surface that catches
in the air and forces one side about or
rctards 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 a baseball curve up
or down, right or left. But the fact
remains that it is the r%oughness Of the
baseball that makes all his pitching
clcvcrness possible.
Take a brand new league bail in
your hand. 1t looks to be Il perfect
sphere-that is. absolutely ven and
uniformly round and as smooth us
glass" And it may be as smooth as
glass, for glass also has a rough sur
face.
Put a baseball under the most pow
erful microscope, enlarge it microscope
cally 10000 diameters, and what do
you see? The very thing mentioned in
the first paragraph OF this article. The
surface is rough. It 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 a
baseball it would be practically a 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 in comparison with the
rough Uneven places on a baseball it
either the earth were reduced to the
size Of 4 baseball or a baseball enlarg-
ed to the size of the earth.
If this were not true the earth would
not revolve so regularly upon it's axis.
1t would perform all 'iu shoot or
'out shoot" and curve off through
space. &s'l. " @1E. :
Even the billiard ball has a 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. las smooth
as a. billiard bali" is a well known
smile. For the same reason that a
perfectly smooth baseball could not be
curved. a perfectly smooth and per-
fectly round billiard ball could not be
made to curve on the table. 1t would
not take .'English," as billiard players
call it when they make a 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 1T to
spin becomes all too evident when y
player forgets to chalk his cue and
plays several shots thereafter. II the
leather tip of the cue becomes shiny
It will slip on the bail. There is no
purchase with which it car take hold.
But chalk is sticky stuff. and the gran.
uies are large. 50 that q well chalked
cue has q 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 be given a lot
Of twist. In order to accomplish this
successfully. moreover. the billiard
cloth nap must be new and therefore
rough.
During recent experimentation with
regard to the kinetic theory of gases
q Belgian scientist desired to find out
how perfect a sphere could be made IN
order that by the claslling Of these to.
getber an idea might be secured of the
effect Of the collisions OF the spherical
atoms that make up a gas. The PROF.
ect had to be abandoned at last be-