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The Physics of Basketball | 
 enlarge | Author: John J. Fontanella
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy New: $13.98
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Avg. Customer Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 148991
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 168
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.6 x 5.4 x 0.7
ISBN: 0801885132
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.3230153
EAN: 9780801885136
ASIN: 0801885132
Publication Date: November 15, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
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Product Description
Drain three pointers, slam dunk easily, and sink that buzzer beater from half court with the help of simple science. Your coach, physicist John J. Fontanella, shows how you can improve your game if you take advice from Isaac Newton. As you read, relive some of the great moments in the game -- this time with a scientist and diehard basketball fan as your color analyst. Find out why you ought to put spin on the ball. Get tips on how to improve your free throw and increase your percentage from the charity stripe. You'll even learn how to shatter the backboard, if that's something you've always dreamed of doing. With photographs and simple high school formulas, physics professor Fontanella -- who played in college against Pittsburgh and Syracuse -- reveals the key pieces of physics that underscore basketball. He covers almost every aspect of the game, weaving in stories from games he's played and games he's seen, and tales from basketball history and folklore. Physics comes alive as you see how Kobe Bryant, Wilt "the Stilt" Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, Becky Hammon, and J. J. Reddick do naturally the things that Isaac Newton says they should.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Shoot da Rock, Baby!!! June 12, 2007
This is a great book for delving deeper into the game of basketball and getting the low down on practical physics. Highly recommend this.
 Font size May 14, 2007
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
I gave the book as a gift and was disappointed when I got a glimpse of the print on the page ... it was very small (to save cost of printing?) and did not look like it would be easy to read....however, I did not read the book so I will have to talk to the giftee to find that info
The true science of basketball May 13, 2007
Over the years, I have found it fascinating to read books on the physics of baseball. Curve balls do curve, knuckle balls do knuckle and scientists have come to admit to the facts that the experimentalists (baseball players) have known for decades. In this book, Fontanella, a physics professor at the United States Naval Academy and a former college basketball player, analyzes the many ways a basketball can bounce. It is very detailed yet extremely entertaining. It is so specific that he points out how much less a basketball weighs as a consequence of air buoyancy. Even to the point where he compares the differences in the weights between the balls used in the women's game versus the men's game. While that part was not of great interest, the rest certainly was.
Like the baseball players, the basketball players have carried out a lot of empirical research. However, not to the extent that Fontanella has. He is very specific about the best angle for a shot, where the "sweet spot" is on the backboard when attempting a lay up and even to the distortion affects on a basketball when it is bounced. While the latter may not appear significant, it is critical for shooting percentages. As the author points out, very few shots are "nothing but net." Most make some contact with the rim and many bounce off the rim before going through the net. The manner in which the ball bounces off the rim is critical. If you have ever played, you know the difference between a soft shot and a "brick."
This is not a book where the author expresses his love for the game and then throws in a bit of physics. It is a serious treatise on basketball with enough formulas so that it could be used in a high school or college physics class. That part was impressive, many coaches would find an examination of this book time well spent.
Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission
Physics + Basketball April 10, 2007
Physics teachers can add some pizzazz to their lectures with these great basketball stories used to explain physics.
 The Physics of Basketball January 11, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Make no mistake about it, this is not an introductory book. This is for people who know basketball and a little physics or know physics and a little basketball. It tells basketball stories to illustrate physics and physics stories to illustrate basketball.
I would recommend this book to high school and college physics teachers to add interest to their discussions. It could even be used as text for a college course on physics of sports. Not only does sport interest students, they already know something about 'how it works' and with the help of this book, an instructor can use physics to introduce them to 'why it works'.
I found of the sequence of explanation of the four force model of the flight of the ball exceptionally well done. As with a good scienctist, he started with data. Then he took one force, gravity, explained how it works, what effect it will have on a shot ball and compared the effect to data. He showed how gravity was necessary but insufficient to explain the ball's motion. Through three more forces: buoynacy, drag (air resistance) and Magnus force, he methodically discussed the force, performed measurements, then added the force to the model. Now that he had the four force model, he used it to explain how a good shooter chooses his shot angle to make a shot 'softer' not, as one might expect, easier. Marvelous -- data, theory (or theories), model, prediction, repeat until it matches nature, and finally use the model to explain something not originally in the model. How much more accurate a view of the method of scientist than the "scientific method".
As the motion of the ball gets more complicated, following the physics does get a bit challenging. Through the discussion of deflections off the rim and backboard, I admit I read for a while and then let it sink in before I returned to it. I was however rewarded in discovering how correct I was in trying to use the board when close to the hoop -- only thirty years too late.
As with any good rock concert, one should be left wanting more, and I wished that the discussion of breaking the glass was given a bit more space. I think a figure or two more showing the effect of compression and tension and how this leads to an explosive break would have helped.
Finally, in addition to instructors, this book would be a good read for your scientist friend or science dabbler who would like good basketball stories along with some good stories of scientific inquiry.
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