why can your brain quickly process something like the angle and speed needed to throw something to someone , but would have to work to figure out the math behind the throw?
In: Mathematics
Your brain is really good with patterns, pulling in stuff you’ve learned and applying it to the current situation. These patterns include what physical movements to make to accomplish certain goals. When you want to throw something to someone, your brain draws from past experiences of throwing things with similar weight and to a similar distance to make the throw. If you had never thrown anything in your life, you would have terrible accuracy, but most people have had practice all throughout life. And likewise, if you practice regularly such as athletes in throwing-related sports, you can train your muscles to throw with high accuracy at various ranges.
Just watch a toddler attempt to throw things to see how terrible our brains are at first, as the object will almost always fly up or to the side and only very rarely be within catchable range. By early primary school age, they can usually get an object in your general direction. And by late primary school, most kids can throw reasonable well, especially if they participate in a sport which requires throwing a ball. These kids are unlikely to be able to perform the math on paper, but they’ve trained their muscles through play how to perform the actions.
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