Siyensikula Script:

Topic: The Science of Basketball

Aljean: What’s your favorite sports?
Aljean: Mine is basketball. But what is basketball? Does it have
a science behind it? Let’s find it out.
Aljean: This is the Science of Basketball!
Aljean: Basketball is considered the first sport that completely
originated in the United States.  It was
invented in December of 1891 when Dr. James Naismith
nailed up some peach baskets in a gym. 
Basketballs today are designed to bounce around the
court and soar in an orange arc from your hands
into the basket.
 But were they always like this?  Why do they have those
bumps on them? Why does a basketball bounce?

Aljean: Basketballs bounce because of the pressurized air inside

of them, gravity and Newton’s Laws of
Motion.

When you dribble a basketball, your hand and gravity both

push the ball towards the ground (Law #1).  As it drops, the ball
accelerates and speeds up (Law #2).  It wants to stay in motion
so the ball pushes into the ground when it hits, compressing the
air inside.  The ground pushes up with an equal, but opposite
amount of force resulting in the ball bouncing back up in to your
hand (Law #3).  The energy in the compressed air is transferred
back to the ball pushing it back into motion.  If you were to
take your hand away and stop dribbling, the ball would continue
to bounce due to Newton’s first law, but would slow down and
eventually stop due to friction. 

Aljean: The more air pressure inside, the harder it will push on
the sides of the ball and the more
bounce you’ll get.  This is why an under inflated
ball won’t bounce very well because there is
not enough air pressure inside to maintain the
forces necessary for bounce. 

Aljean: Why the bumps?

So the last detail they added to their new ball was little
bumps on the surface of the leather called pebbling. Adding these
bumps was all about friction.  When forces collide, friction
naturally slows things down over time and the more points of
contact an object has with another surface the more friction
comes into play.  So the bumps on the basketball basically
increase the surface area of the ball and the amount of friction
acting on it.  This makes the pebbled ball ideal for a player to
grip, pass quickly, and dribble without fear that the ball will
slip away in a random direction. 

Aljean: Next time you shoot some hoops, observe all the features
of the basketball that make it special. 
It’s a great example of engineering and American
innovation in action!