Olympic Physics: What the Puck?!

MJ Author

02/14/2022 Added

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Tim Gay is a physics professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He’s known for his videos explaining the physics of football. So we asked Dr. Gay to explain the physics behind winter Olympic events. Ice hockey requires speed, strength, skill and agility. But what makes that puck travel so fast into the net? Dr. Gay explains the physics behind the slap shot.

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[00:00:00.690]One of the fastest sports
[00:00:02.390]in the Olympics is ice hockey.
[00:00:04.570]When a player makes a slap shot to score,
[00:00:07.510]the puck can leave his stick
[00:00:09.360]traveling at over 100 miles per hour,
[00:00:11.680]faster than a major league fast ball.
[00:00:14.690]How does the puck accelerate up to speeds this high?
[00:00:18.600]The shooter swings the stick hard at the puck.
[00:00:21.620]So some of the combined momentum
[00:00:23.210]of the player and the stick itself
[00:00:25.180]is transferred to the puck.
[00:00:27.210]But the shooter also uses a physics trick
[00:00:30.030]to get the puck moving even faster.
[00:00:32.890]As he swings his stick down toward the puck,
[00:00:35.560]he makes sure that the first thing he hits is not the puck,
[00:00:38.800]but the ice about a foot in front of the puck.
[00:00:41.830]The collision between the ice and stick
[00:00:43.670]causes the stick to bend backward by almost 30 degrees.
[00:00:47.390]So that it's now loaded, just like a tightly coiled spring.
[00:00:51.004](spring twanging)
[00:00:51.837]Just as the stick's blade finally comes into direct contact
[00:00:55.050]with a puck, it's stored energy is released
[00:00:58.000]as the stick straightens
[00:00:59.380]and is transferred directly to the puck.
[00:01:02.230]This additional snap is what makes
[00:01:04.020]the stick-puck collision so violent,
[00:01:06.920]and what makes the puck move so fast.
[00:01:10.390]That's how the greats like Terry O'Reilly play the game.
[00:01:13.810]You might call it
[00:01:15.437](puck clanking)
[00:01:17.680]the puck of the Irish.
[00:01:19.710]It's just a little bit of physics thrown in.
[00:01:22.238](upbeat music)

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Olympic Physics: What the Puck?!

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