Great video! I'd love to see a video about reading the ice. Sometimes as skip I don't feel confident with how much ice I call for on certain shots. Granted, I play at a club with some wonky ice at times (one side curls a foot or more than the other, etc) and old, worn out rocks, so there's a lot of challenges and variables. More specifically, figuring out how to decide how much ice to give for soft-weight hits and lining up angles for raises. Thanks for making all these!
Jamie I coach a youth Curling Program in Capreol, Ontario. Any kind of video tailored towards kids beginning curling 1-3 years in would be awesome. We all think you're awesome too. Thanks for all that you do for the curling community.
Question: You mentioned up to a 2" gap between rocks to have the effect. As an Engineer thinking about the physics of this, I automatically imagine this can't be a hard line. (I.e. not 2" or less has it, 2.000001" {or even just 2.3" } acts completely like normal) Do you have any rules of thumb about how far of a separation you'd look for before you'd expect 0 drag? I'd of course assume there's some difficult to measure progression between. We actually discussed the effect in one of my clubs recent strategy zooms, and our one of our most experienced curlers didn't have a specific answer. They also didn't impart the striking band width concept you just did (granted there's not a lot of variation in us or our neighboring clubs). SO Thanks as usual for that! :-)
Yeah its definitely not a hard line. It depends on a lot of things. But id say after 2" it gets pretty iffy. aka its hard to tell what youre going to get. Probably after 4" there isnt any drag....
Andrew J. Hipius: "... one of our most experienced curlers didn't have a specific answer ...". Indeed, I am completely puzzled about why curling stones do not behave like billiard balls. As far as I know, there is no "drag effect" in billiards (I am not talking about the spin that a pool cue can impart to a cue ball - - that's a whole different thing). Also, why does the drag effect get smaller when the stones are further apart? That is mystifying!
A couple years late to the conversation, but a few physics thoughts that can at least contribute to the conversation (I'm not an engineer or physicist, so this is all layman stuff). First off, the easy thing to explain is why curling stones don't behave like billiard balls: Friction. Billiard balls are spheres, so the area of contact they have on the table is tiny, and the felt of the table is relatively easy for the ball to start rolling on. The time the balls spend in contact is almost nothing, and the hit ball accelerates to full speed almost instantly. Because of that, there's not much that would STOP the balls from acting like a math problem on graph paper. They go where you expect them to go, with relative ease. Curling rocks are not spheres, so they have considerably more area of contact. Much more than that, curling is played on ice, which quickly freezes a rock in place, creating significant resistance to get a rock moving (as we all know from trying to move a rock by hand that's been sitting there a while). It happens too fast for us to see it, but when we hit a rock in the open, the moving rock actually bounces off BEFORE the other rock starts moving (measured in tiny fractions of a second). The hit rock also takes time to accelerate to full speed, as it breaks free from the stationary friction of the ice (again, faster than we can see). Put those together and the cause of the drag effect becomes clear. If a hit rock is close enough to another stationary rock that they contact before the first rock is - if you'll allow me to introduce a term - at "full glide" then the amount of time the two rocks are in contact is many times longer than in an open hit, where the thrown rock redirects away in an instant. That also explains why there's a small range in which this exists, because once the first rock is far enough away from the second rock that it's up to full glide (when it has minimum friction with the ice) then it will separate just as quickly as if it was an open hit from a thrown rock. Now, even with the significantly reduced time before separation from a rock that's fully gliding, it's still nothing compared to the free transfer of momentum between billiard balls (because of those same ice & shape considerations), which is why you'll still get the spin of a thrown rock transferring into a hit rock, and deviations from the perfect 90-degree angles of divergence that would make a mathematician smile. It just drives home that if we were able to view curling in super slow motion, it would look more like a sledge hammer hitting chunks of pavement than a bunch of bouncing balls.
This is the best explanation of the drag effect I have heard since the term was introduced. Thank you!
aww thats so sweet. Thank you!!
You explained this perfectly. Thank you!
As always great stuff! Wish I could be on the ice this year, fingers crossed for next season!
Great video, thanks for this! Will definitely practice this next time in the rink.
Great video. Love thr brick wall behind you! Miss the Chapple renos.
Thank you! I love this wall too!
Love your tips. Love to see how you lineup rocks to make take outs. Thanks.
Great idea!
Great video! I'd love to see a video about reading the ice. Sometimes as skip I don't feel confident with how much ice I call for on certain shots. Granted, I play at a club with some wonky ice at times (one side curls a foot or more than the other, etc) and old, worn out rocks, so there's a lot of challenges and variables. More specifically, figuring out how to decide how much ice to give for soft-weight hits and lining up angles for raises. Thanks for making all these!
This is a great idea. Stay tuned!
That's real magic! 🔥
Right! Mind blowing
Jamie I coach a youth Curling Program in Capreol, Ontario. Any kind of video tailored towards kids beginning curling 1-3 years in would be awesome. We all think you're awesome too. Thanks for all that you do for the curling community.
I could definitely do that! Thanks!
Conservation of linear momentum
Question: You mentioned up to a 2" gap between rocks to have the effect. As an Engineer thinking about the physics of this, I automatically imagine this can't be a hard line. (I.e. not 2" or less has it, 2.000001" {or even just 2.3" } acts completely like normal) Do you have any rules of thumb about how far of a separation you'd look for before you'd expect 0 drag?
I'd of course assume there's some difficult to measure progression between.
We actually discussed the effect in one of my clubs recent strategy zooms, and our one of our most experienced curlers didn't have a specific answer. They also didn't impart the striking band width concept you just did (granted there's not a lot of variation in us or our neighboring clubs). SO Thanks as usual for that! :-)
Yeah its definitely not a hard line. It depends on a lot of things. But id say after 2" it gets pretty iffy. aka its hard to tell what youre going to get. Probably after 4" there isnt any drag....
Andrew J. Hipius: "... one of our most experienced curlers didn't have a specific answer ...".
Indeed, I am completely puzzled about why curling stones do not behave like billiard balls. As far as I know, there is no "drag effect" in billiards (I am not talking about the spin that a pool cue can impart to a cue ball - - that's a whole different thing). Also, why does the drag effect get smaller when the stones are further apart? That is mystifying!
A couple years late to the conversation, but a few physics thoughts that can at least contribute to the conversation (I'm not an engineer or physicist, so this is all layman stuff). First off, the easy thing to explain is why curling stones don't behave like billiard balls: Friction. Billiard balls are spheres, so the area of contact they have on the table is tiny, and the felt of the table is relatively easy for the ball to start rolling on. The time the balls spend in contact is almost nothing, and the hit ball accelerates to full speed almost instantly. Because of that, there's not much that would STOP the balls from acting like a math problem on graph paper. They go where you expect them to go, with relative ease.
Curling rocks are not spheres, so they have considerably more area of contact. Much more than that, curling is played on ice, which quickly freezes a rock in place, creating significant resistance to get a rock moving (as we all know from trying to move a rock by hand that's been sitting there a while). It happens too fast for us to see it, but when we hit a rock in the open, the moving rock actually bounces off BEFORE the other rock starts moving (measured in tiny fractions of a second). The hit rock also takes time to accelerate to full speed, as it breaks free from the stationary friction of the ice (again, faster than we can see).
Put those together and the cause of the drag effect becomes clear. If a hit rock is close enough to another stationary rock that they contact before the first rock is - if you'll allow me to introduce a term - at "full glide" then the amount of time the two rocks are in contact is many times longer than in an open hit, where the thrown rock redirects away in an instant. That also explains why there's a small range in which this exists, because once the first rock is far enough away from the second rock that it's up to full glide (when it has minimum friction with the ice) then it will separate just as quickly as if it was an open hit from a thrown rock.
Now, even with the significantly reduced time before separation from a rock that's fully gliding, it's still nothing compared to the free transfer of momentum between billiard balls (because of those same ice & shape considerations), which is why you'll still get the spin of a thrown rock transferring into a hit rock, and deviations from the perfect 90-degree angles of divergence that would make a mathematician smile. It just drives home that if we were able to view curling in super slow motion, it would look more like a sledge hammer hitting chunks of pavement than a bunch of bouncing balls.
Curling psychology
Did you get those angles in the demos right on the first take every time?
definitely not haha i was throwing the rock from the close hogline so it wasnt very accurate haha
you are what made me a better curler can you show us hog line violation testing
Great idea! But hogline violations would be hard to test without the censured handles they have on TV...
"this hurts my knee" i can believe that
Yeah, probably not the best idea haha