NEW YORK: Scientists, including one of Indian origin, have mathematically calculated the best strategy for the perfect throw – be it a dart, a basket ball or even a crumpled piece of paper.
Researchers, who looked at the physics behind releasing a projectile with the human arm in a series of calculations, suggest that a slow underarm throw is the best strategy for getting a piece of paper into a nearby bin.
According to the researchers from the Yale University in the US, faster throws tend to be less accurate.
This is because the ball travels in a nearly straight line, so any errors in the angle at which the object is released tend to be amplified, they said.
“What we find is that almost the slowest arc is often the most accurate,” said Madhusudhan Venkadesan, assistant professor at Yale.
“We have compared these calculations to published data of people throwing into wastebaskets, we have compared it to a study in dart throwing,” Venkadesan was quoted as saying by ‘BBC News’.
In sports such as basketball or darts, the strategy depends on conditions and the trade-off needed between speed and accuracy researchers said.
For example, experienced darts players throw overarm at about 5.5 metres per second, optimally releasing the dart 17 to 37 degrees before the arm becomes vertical.
On the cricket pitch, fielders are more likely to strike the wicket with a fast underarm throw.
The study was published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
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