If you hit a cue ball on a pool table at an infinite speed, is there any way that the ball won't go into a hole, assuming that it doesn't bump off the table?
by 
sleidman
ANSWERS: 2
-
G'day sleidman, Thank you for your question. There is no way under the current laws of physics that it could faster than the speed of light which is in metric units, exactly 299,792,458 meters per second (1,079,252,848.8 km/h). If it was travelling it such a speed it wouldn't go into the pocket. It would go through the pool table and anything else unlucky enough to be in its path until it eventually slowed down. It would be travelling at millions of times faster than a speeding bullet. I have attached a source for your reference. Regards Reference Wikipedia Speed of Light http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light
-
Assuming the pool table has perfect felt and perfect rails, there are tons of ways that is would not go into a hole. For example, if you hit it at a perfect right angle to a rail it would simply go back and forth bewteen rails. Or, think of any other perfect-collision table pattern, like triangles or zigzags that would just keep looping. But, we know that felt isn't perfect, rails aren't perfect, and you're not perfect. So, there will always be collision anomalies given a non-perfect table, resulting in the ball going off its perfect course and into a hole. Unless you can get a perfect angle and have perfect motion and collision, it will eventually find a hole.
RELATED QUESTIONS
Copyright 2023, Wired Ivy, LLC