Re: Some Funny Pics.

thomthom

It look utterly nuts that a golf ball would deform like that, essentially when you think of how hard it feels. But all these ultra-slow motion video clips, and the amazing program Time Warp for instance, one realises that rigid objects often are much more flexible than one originally assumed.

remus

Some very brief research suggests that different varieties of golf balls exist, specifically you can get ones that are much softer than a regulation ball, so perhaps its one of those.

TIG

Solidity is an illusion.
I know when a golf ball hits you on the head it seems quite solid... BUT most 'things' consist of empty space with a few atoms thrown in - so under levels of stress and strain than we don't normally experience [or perhaps more exactly, we don't 'notice'] - seemingly solid objects can behave as if they are 'elastic' or even 'permeable' - e.g. electrons passing through gold-leaf sheets unchanged etc...

remus

That reminds me of another point: we dont know how fast the ball was travelling. If it was going at mach 2 i wouldn't be very surprised if it wobbled a bit when it hit something stationary...

thomthom

@remus said:

That reminds me of another point: we dont know how fast the ball was travelling. If it was going at mach 2 i wouldn't be very surprised if it wobbled a bit when it hit something stationary...

Then I'm more surprised it didn't break.

Alan Fraser

I can't believe that's a normal golf ball. They do come with a variety if fillings...including liquid cores...but the degree of deformation in that shot suggests that the whole interior underneath the casing is liquid. Normal golf balls do distort, but nothing like that extent. http://www.springerlink.com/content/936p5m7481450164/fulltext.pdf

Firing a normal ball at supersonic speed would probably cause it to disintegrate. Other full videos of this claim it was fired at a mere 150 mph. That's about the same speed that a ball leaves the tee. If the club compressed it that much, it would only travel a few yards.
[flash=640,385:1umsl1lo]http://www.youtube.com/v/AkB81u5IM3I&hl=en_GB&fs=1&[/flash:1umsl1lo]

It's probably a staller or a sponge ball.