Science in Baseball

Hall of Famer Ted Williams once famously commented that hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports. Although Williams - a 0.344 career hitter - made it look easy, he had a point. Hitting a round ball with a round bat squarely is difficult. It's also an excellent example of some very [entertaining:appealing] applied physics.No surprise then that professional baseball players are turning to science to improve their multimillion-dollar strokes. Some approaches focus on the neuroscience of hitting - the deep internal brain [mechanisms:machine] behind seeing the pitch and reacting to it. But for more info about the swing itself, a sports tech company called Zepp Labs makes a sensor that can help break down those mechanics.The sensor sits in the knob of the company's so-called "Smart Bat" and uses two [accelerometers:thermometers] and a three-axis [gyroscope:tripod] to measure bat speed, hand speed, attack angle and other factors. The sensor, which weighs only about eight grams, sends this info to a [smartphone:laptop] app via Bluetooth.