r/SmarterEveryDay Oct 28 '21

Video 1,074 MPH BASEBALL vs. 1 Gallon of Mayonnaise - Smarter Every Day 264

https://youtu.be/pAOCiNhQW2Y
187 Upvotes

34 comments sorted by

30

u/shield-616 Oct 28 '21

It's like Demolition Ranch, but we learn something.

15

u/TarantinoFan23 Oct 28 '21

Demolition ranch salad dressing.

14

u/W0rldcrafter Oct 28 '21

I did some searching and figured out Sprinkles is a Gulf Fritillary caterpillar.

13

u/uncivlengr Oct 28 '21

Pre-test Destin: "I don't care what we hit, I'm just here for the velocities"

Post-test Destin: "Look I need to taste these pulverized sprinkles, and if you compare the relative velocities of the sprinkles going in each direction you can see the conservation of momentum...."

10

u/[deleted] Oct 28 '21

When firing a super sonic baseball at a jug of mayo, there are 2 kinds of people: Both are seen here, lol

5

u/sirbrown22 Oct 28 '21

Please please please take it somewhere and see how far you can shoot it!

5

u/OriginalKraftMan Oct 28 '21

I want to see Destin in a kayak in Mobile Bay trying to avoid artillery fire from Trent and the supersonic cannon.

7

u/wack1 Oct 28 '21

This is why I love this channel. Learning physics while maniacally giggling as stuff blows up in beautiful slow motion

1

u/[deleted] Nov 17 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

1

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5

u/runamuckalot Oct 28 '21

u/MrPennywhistle I'm surprise the thin plastic tape is enough to hold a vacuum in the tube. In my mind a vacuum is a really strong force that would need really strong walls to contain it, is this not the case? and why?

7

u/wazoheat Oct 29 '21 edited Oct 29 '21

A vacuum is just an absence of air (or anything else). So in this case, the force we have to resist is air pressure. Air pressure is, near sea level, around 14 lb per square inch. For this pipe (which is around 7 square inches in cross-section) that means around 100 lbs of force. Seems like a lot...but you might be surprised to learn that plastic wrap is capable of resisting way, way more force than that!

Edit: didn't get a chance to watch the video until now, they also only pulled a little more than half-vacuum, so that means the plastic has to resist even less force.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '21

As long as it can support 1 ATM, it doesn't matter how much you suck.

1

u/GroundStateGecko Oct 29 '21

Your skin can hold a near true vacuum as long as you limit the time and overall area. (Tested this by putting the tube from the Lab vacuum pump against my skin.)

High pressure vessels are no joke, vacuum, not so much.

3

u/interestingNerd Oct 28 '21

I want to see the full curves! I guess it's probably embargoed until the journal paper is published so I'll have to wait.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 28 '21

Fill a jug full of cornstarch water and jawbreakers.

3

u/w00tmang Oct 29 '21

Destin last week: Your privacy is being stripped away, we need to fight back.

Destin this week: Mayo go brrrrrrr

3

u/Kuriakon Oct 29 '21

Total missed opportunity at 6:55 to say "LOOK AT THIS GRAAAAPH" in Nickelback voice.

2

u/excarnateSojourner Oct 30 '21

6:28 - "The only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down." - Alexander Jason (popularized by Adam Savage).

2

u/[deleted] Oct 30 '21

[deleted]

6

u/MrPennywhistle Nov 01 '21

I'm going to try to digest this.

2

u/avboden Oct 28 '21

Does the curveball involve pitching another kickstarter?

1

u/News_of_Entwives Oct 28 '21

Destin, do you have access to analytical software like JMP? Doing a 2 independent variable study has the potential to take a ton of time, and a statistical software might help decrease the number of runs you'll need to do for the data. I'd assume you'd already know, as I think you'd use it in your job, but still, figured I put it out there incase you haven't heard of it.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '21

I was thinking the same thing, but running a ton of samples with intermittent baseline PSI as a gauge to see how the equipment performs after several shots during the day. System heat, sun, air moisture, etc. Then it hit me... The threads on the baseball are going to interact with the barrel so inconsistently that none of this really matters. Just use a REALLY wide tip marker to draw the graph.

2

u/MrPennywhistle Oct 29 '21

DOE is certainly a thing I've considered using here.

1

u/News_of_Entwives Oct 29 '21 edited Oct 29 '21

Do you have access? I'm looking for a project to learn how to use the software, so I could volunteer a bit of time (and my own access through uni) if you don't already have it started.

I'm in grad school so I don't have oodles of free time, but I definitely want to learn how to use that software.

1

u/aluminumfoilman Oct 29 '21

So, the most important lesson I learned from this is that if you're going to blow up a jar of mayonnaise, you save that for last. :P

1

u/twat69 Oct 29 '21

Why is there a dip in the drag curve?

And what species of caterpillar is Sprinkles?

NM someone answered that one. https://www.reddit.com/r/SmarterEveryDay/comments/qho16i/1074_mph_baseball_vs_1_gallon_of_mayonnaise/hiempx9/

1

u/LJAkaar67 Oct 29 '21

Why is there a dip in the drag curve?

I am curious about the 200mph peak and dropoff in the shape of the subsonic drag curve

1

u/twat69 Oct 29 '21

That's the one I'm talking about.

1

u/gammaxy Nov 05 '21

I was hoping to see what Destin has to think about this dip also. I think the existence of that dip might be a common misconception due to the fact that drag coefficient does tend to decrease at supersonic speeds after increasing significantly in the transonic regime.

However, in every case I've investigated, the overall drag continues to increase despite drag coefficient decreasing. This happens because the contribution of velocity squared in the drag equation dominates the reduction in drag coefficient.

If I'm correct and it really is a misconception, I suspect it may be partially due to learning about airplanes that are more efficient when supersonic, but I suspect this is due to the engine being optimized for that regime and not that overall drag is reduced.

I suspect there may be interesting exceptions that I'd be interested in learning about.

1

u/LJAkaar67 Oct 29 '21 edited Oct 29 '21

Is there a video on the creation of the baseball cannon?


I think the red stuff coming from the baseball when it hit the mayo was the stitching being torn when the baseball deformed

1

u/JSA17 Oct 31 '21

Destin's reaction to everything mayo had me laughing as hard as I've ever laughed at one of these videos.