Give the B-Ball its B-Bounce

Life has its up and downs, it’s a fact… I guess the inspiration for such a statement can be found by watching a basketball game. I’m not referencing the heartache when your team looses or the light-hearted giddy feeling when your team triumphs… I’m talking about the ball. I guess the metaphor works in more than one way, then. But this week there were no hard feeling in any of the games when some of the Emory students and Jose went out to shoot some hoops; the sport is fun and it doesn’t quite matter who wins when you’re not playing for props. It did, however, serve to kindle the flames of curiosity.
Anyone who watched the game would tell you that I never dribble the ball. Never. I don’t have some kind of aversion to the action, it’s simply not in my muscle memory, since I never grew up playing the game (I grew up with Netball, similar concept, but no dribbling.). Watching the others do it so naturally brought a question to my mind; what gives the ball its bounce?
I do remember from physics and chemistry, both, the idea behind elastic collisions. In the scientific sense an elastic collision is one in which there is no loss of kinetic energy, there may be a transfer of energy from one object to another, but the resulting movement is reactionary. In that sense too, I remember that Newton teaches us that each reaction has an equal and opposite reaction. So I figure that along with the elastic properties of the ball part of the situation is as follows: the ball is driven down [forcefully] against the ground. The ground cannot recoil to absorb the impact, thus the ball bounces back against the equal and opposite force now given by the sturdy ground. I wasn’t completely convinced by my own simple answer, though, and decided to investigate a little further into the matter.
I found I had two ways to approach the matter, the first is to strictly consider basketballs, and the other was to consider bouncy-balls in general. Apparently the answer to one is not the answer to the other, so I will talk about the prior. I had suspected that the answer to the bounce lie in the chemistry of the rubber, I was wrong. Though some balls, no doubt, do have more spring because of their rubbery exterior, the secret to the bounce lies beneath the surface too, quite literally. The anatomy of the ball, then, can shed a little more light on the subject. The typical make-up of a basketball ball from exterior to interior is an outer covering, usually leather or rubber, which wraps over layers of fiber that in turn covers an inflatable “inner bladder.” (1) The air, in this case, lends the power to the bounce. When a ball strikes the court, the air inside the ball compresses and absorbs the energy of the strike. The ball recoils from the compressed airs need to return the ball to its original shape, and the air contained to its original energy. (2) This is also the reason that the ball does not bounce as well when it is not fully inflated. The same effect can also be given by cooling the ball. (2) This results in less thermal energy of the molecules of air inside the ball, and thus decreased pressure of the molecules hitting the inner surface of the bladder.
The outer surface is not without contribution, however. Were it not for the elastic properties of the outer surface, the ball would not be able to rebound and regain its shape. The air is only part of the equation. Trying to bounce a ball made of glass would obviously not have the same result. Having a brittle shell, despite being filled with air, would cause the ball to shatter.
So what are the lessons learned? Fill yourself with air and have a bouncy outer surface in order to jump back when life hits you hard… Take a deep breath, contemplate the situation before reacting. Don’t let the small things cut you deep; let them bounce off of you. Maybe then you will have more ups than downs in the basketball game that is your life.


(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basketball_(ball)
(2) http://www.howeverythingworks.org/bouncing_balls.html