10 Pin Bowling - Sport of the Gods
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
According to some bowling researchers, it appears bowling may have dated as far back as Egypt, 3200 years ago. Since there weren't too many ball return systems at that time, not to mention simply crude bronze/iron tools to carve pins, I'm betting the first bowling lane involved Pharoh launching a boulder off the top of some pyramid and watching the slaves scatter. Luckily, things are more civilized today, thanks to the inventions of:
The Bowling Ball
The Bowling Pin
The Bowling Lane
Beer
The Bowling Ball: If you want to bowl well, go for the heaviest ball you can and still have control. Remember Newton's Law of F=MA? Force is equal to mass times acceleration. The heavier the ball, the more boom or for your speed. A heavier ball also increases the coefficient of friction, giving a spinning ball more grip on the lanes. Why is spinning good? Rotational motion provides another force interacting with the pins, and force is a good thing.
The Bowling Pin: Modern bowling pins, unlike Pharoah's slaves, are evenly balanced, evenly sized, and evenly spaced. You, of course, want to hit the sweet spot just between the head pin and the 3 (righties) or 2 (lefties).
The Bowling Lane: How do ye hit the fabled sweet spot? Use the arrows, of course. Arrows are useful in most applications in life as mechanisms to tell you how to get to something far away (this, of course, does not apply to airports as our founding father, Douglas Adams, observed (RIP, oh great one)). In this case, it is easier to hit a target 15 feet away than a target 60 feet away.
Much more, of course will be written. As for now - I have other things to do.
The Bowling Ball
The Bowling Pin
The Bowling Lane
Beer
The Bowling Ball: If you want to bowl well, go for the heaviest ball you can and still have control. Remember Newton's Law of F=MA? Force is equal to mass times acceleration. The heavier the ball, the more boom or for your speed. A heavier ball also increases the coefficient of friction, giving a spinning ball more grip on the lanes. Why is spinning good? Rotational motion provides another force interacting with the pins, and force is a good thing.
The Bowling Pin: Modern bowling pins, unlike Pharoah's slaves, are evenly balanced, evenly sized, and evenly spaced. You, of course, want to hit the sweet spot just between the head pin and the 3 (righties) or 2 (lefties).
The Bowling Lane: How do ye hit the fabled sweet spot? Use the arrows, of course. Arrows are useful in most applications in life as mechanisms to tell you how to get to something far away (this, of course, does not apply to airports as our founding father, Douglas Adams, observed (RIP, oh great one)). In this case, it is easier to hit a target 15 feet away than a target 60 feet away.
Much more, of course will be written. As for now - I have other things to do.
