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When Major League home runs are hit now, data is usually displayed from Statcast showing the exit velocity, the launch angle and the range. If your students plug the first two values into the standard projectile range equation, they will find that the result is significantly larger than the reported range. As a recent example, using exit velocity = 109.1 mi/hr and launch angle = 30°, the standard range equation gives 693 ft while the Statcast result is 429 ft. The discrepancy is explained in this article, which discusses the forces acting on the ball besides gravity: http://aapt.scitation.org/doi/10.1119/1.4976652
This might be an interesting topic for classroom discussion.
This might be an interesting topic for classroom discussion.