On the size of sports fields

Baptiste Darbois Texier (1) , Caroline Cohen (1) , Guillaume Dupeux (2) , David Quéré (2) , Christophe Clanet (1)

1 LadHyX - Laboratoire d'hydrodynamique
2 PMMH - Physique et mécanique des milieux hétérogenes (UMR 7636)

The size of sports fields considerably varies from a few meters for table tennis to hundreds of meters for golf. We first show that this size is mainly fixed by the range of the projectile, that is, by the aerodynamic properties of the ball (mass, surface, drag coefficient) and its maximal velocity in the game. This allows us to propose general classifications for sports played with a ball.

Domains: Physics [physics]; Mechanics [physics]; Fluid mechanics [physics.class-ph]; Engineering Sciences [physics]; Mechanics [physics.med-ph]; Fluids mechanics [physics.class-ph]; Engineering Sciences [physics]; Reactive fluid environment

Baptiste Darbois Texier, Caroline Cohen, Guillaume Dupeux, David Quéré, Christophe Clanet. On the size of sports fields. New Journal of Physics, 2014, 16 (3), ⟨10.1088/1367-2630/16/3/033039⟩. ⟨hal-00995134⟩