Optimal speed for deviation of a spinning sphere

blindnz

Hi,

I'm just trying to find out if there is a calculation to that relates deviation from a straight line to the forward velocity and the rotation of a circular object.
Essentially i have a small project that i get to prepare and work on and was thinking of trying to find the optimal bowling speed for a cricket spin bowler to get maxium drift.

I was planning on doing a small amount of expermination and calculation to verify results.

Any help or better ideas would be much appreciated

tiny-tim

Hi blindnz!

If you mean swing bowling (where the ball swings in the air as opposed to when it hits the ground), it's caused by turbulent flow, and would be almost impossible to calculate for something as small and imprecise as a cricket ball.

For some details, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_b..._swing_bowling

blindnz

I mean the art of a spin bowler in cricket one that imparts rotation on the ball which causes drift in the air and then also a turn when the ball grips the pitch(ground) but i'm mostly interested in the amount of drift i.e deviation from a straight line through the air due to the rotation of the ball

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_bowling

since this drift is created by the magnus effect? there must be some physical maximum drift that can be achieved i.e a particular combination of rotation imparted by the bowler and i understand magnus effect also has something to do with forward velocity.
So all things being equal i would like to find the physical maximum drift that a spin bowler could produce taking by optimising spin and forward velocity.