Why in baseball the optimal angle for a home run is a lot less than 45 degrees?
In high school physics (okay, this is no longer 5 year old level) to throw something to the most distant, you throw it at 45 degrees.
But why in baseball the optimal angle for hitting a home run is a lot less than what is taught in physics?
I kind of understand it has to do with air resistance, but why does air resistance change the angle by that much?
In: Physics
A 45 degree angle is the optimal angle for distance in a vacuum. In an atmosphere it heavily depends on the mass of the object. A baseball doesn’t have very much mass so it is affected by air resistance much more than something heavier or denser would be and you want it to travel as much distance as possible before it slows down.
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