The Hang Time of My Golf Drive

I love to play golf. Golf is a sport that combines the physical precision that the best of sports require with the leisurely pleasure that any activity should have. Unfortunately, I do not get to golf very often, and thus, I am not a wonderful golfer. When I golf with him, my grandpa keeps a distance finder to measure all of our drives. My best drive thus far has been 205 yards. I am going to use the knowledge in my physics textbook to explain why my arms, which are completely incapable of throwing the ball 205 yards, are able to drive it that far. The answer lies in the leverage that I am able to utilize when I swing the golf club. Because of centrifugal force, the club extended from hands is able to swing much further and faster than my arms do when they are swinging the club. The club is light overall, and yet has a heavy chunk of metal which hits the ball. Therefore, when I hit the ball with a relatively slow, weak swing with a light club, the ball flies 205 yards because the swing multiplies the force of my swing on the club and when the heavy point smashes into the ball, the ball goes further than would be expected.

Acceleration Learned the Hard Way

This past week, my family flew in from California and had a reunion in Kailua. I was supposed to watch my baby cousin for about ten minutes and he was playing on the coffee table in the living room. We were playing a game of sorts in which he would drop a very large toy car and I would catch it immediately. However, after about 3 minutes, I forgot to catch the car and it fell on my toe. It hurt and I may have taught my cousin a word for which he might get in trouble if he repeats. This got me thinking. Why would the car hurt after it fell on my toe but not when it fell on my hand when I caught it? I looked through my physics textbook and discovered that falling objects fall at 9.8 meters per second squared. Thus, it hurt more when it fell on my toe because it was airborne longer, meaning that it was going much faster when it hit my toe compared to when it hit my hand. I also figured out that velocity has a positive correlation with force, accounting for the pain felt when the car hit my toe.