Talk:2711: Optimal Bowling

Who cares about rules? I mean, I'm pretty sure your score won't count according to rules if you bowl from establishment uphill from bowling alley. -- Hkmaly (talk) 05:36, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

If the ball has a diameter of 8.5 inches (multiplied by 2.54 and Pi makes about 67.8cm circumference) the rpm is also limited by the speed of light of the surface (reached at about 6.4x10^9rpm).

Please elaborate on how widespread the aforementioned destruction would be. 172.71.154.38 10:50, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

See What-If #1 (https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/) for reference. Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 11:01, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Randall is clearly overestimating the mass range at which "equipment damage" would occur. Even 10^3 kilos is a //car//. I'm pretty sure that throwing a bowling ball the mass of a car would do a lot of equipment damage. I believe the 10^10 to 10^20 range should be "widespread destruction" (already a category above) and between that and the Schwarzchild mass should be something like "all life on Earth destroyed" because 10^20 kilos is plenty large enough for a global killer asteroid (admittedly its velocity would be much smaller... but still, I don't see how you have 1% of the Moon's mass in bowling ball without wiping out all life on Earth). 172.70.85.175 11:20, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

That's the joke :) The humour is in the understatement Xseo (talk) 11:51, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

If the bowling ball is made from material on Earth having 1 % of the Moons mass concentrated in one city but without any speed should not have any wide impact on Earth. Probably alot for those in the city. the gravity changes locally, and surrounding area. But not massive destruction. If 1% of Moons mass was added to Earth I also do not think it would make much difference, as long as it was placed softly on Earth. --Kynde (talk) 12:26, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

For further edification: A 10^3 kg bowling ball traveling at 10^3 m/s is approximately equivalent to a shell fired from the main battery gun of a battleship. 162.158.159.74 11:40, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

The aim graph is wrong, isn't it? I have never practiced bowling, but I am pretty sure I have seen videos explaining that you need to aim on the side, and the spin will bring the ball to strike the pin group with an angle, not head on. 172.71.134.132 12:26, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

It's not clear what the target is in the aim graph. If it's straight down the middle towards the headpin, you're right. But maybe it's aiming towards that optimal curve angle. Barmar (talk) 14:50, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

on that note, what is assumed for the other 3 parameters as 1 is changed along the graph? 0? average? optimal? 172.71.22.160 15:04, 15 December 2022 (UTC)Bumpf

considering the whole graph covers everything up to and including facing away from the lane, it could be that the spike "at" 0 degrees encompasses a lot of fine grain control. After all being 5 degrees off center wouldn't show up much in a 360 degree span, but could make a decent difference on where the ball hits within a lane.172.70.134.96 15:59, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Is there an extra gag in the fact all the numbers are on a logarithmic scale, or is that just so he can get to the absurdist values? 172.68.174.164 16:52, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

I would like to know precisely how anybody scores a strike when their ball has 0 RPM!? Y'all playing on ice rinks!? --172.69.79.185 00:49, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

I think "spin" is referring to horizontal spin (along the vertical axis), since "speed" is a separate graph. No spin then just means no curve. 172.71.182.49 08:19, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

At the beginning it references "Ten Pin Bowling" by which I presume the author of that section was referring to "Duck Pin Bowling" which is the major form in the United States. There is also "Candle Pin Bowling" which is a different class of Ten Pin, but with very differently shaped pins and smaller balls without finger holes and mostly limited to small areas of the Northeast. Some of the physics is enough different that the curves would vary if they weren't so absurdly scaled already, in that sense the graphs are as applicable to Candle Pin as they are to Duck Pin. Of course, this is all in the extreme detail that's not really relevant to readers understanding, so I'm not sure if it needs to be explained. MAP (talk) 05:12, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

• No, I really meant ten-pin bowling. Duckpin bowling is a variation played regularly in only a few states, and candlepin bowling is yet another variation played in only a few states. But the kind of bowling most widely played in the U.S. is ten-pin bowling. See the respective Wikipedia articles linked in the preceding sentences. --172.71.254.94 08:17, 16 December 2022 (UTC)