Does air pressure or surface affect a basketball bounce?

Answer 1

The question is best answered in terms of elasticity.

A highly elastic collision will retain most energy (a good bounce), an inelastic collision dissipates (wastes) almost all energy.

Imagine a steel ball bearing dropped onto a thick steel plate. The ball bearing will bounce up and down for a long time - elastic collision.

Now imagine dropping a piece of plasticine.

One "goop" and it's all over - no bounce. Inelastic collision.

Putting more air into the basket ball makes it "tighter" and more elastic. The more elastic, the more energy is preserved, so the better the bounce.

For the same reason, pumping car tyres up to their safest pressure (and no more!!!) makes them more elastic, so they waste less energy when they deform while rotating, and you get (a bit) better gas mileage.

The more air pressure in the ball, the higher the ball will bounce. The less air pressure, the lower the ball will bounce. This is the same for just about any ball, too- not just basketballs.

When a Basketball has more pressure it tends to bounce higher because of the consequent reduced surface area. The reason a basketball that has a lower pressure bounces not so high is because alot of the energy used to bounce the ball is lost because of friction and transfer to heat.

Surely the simple answer is that when filled to a high pressure, the ball is forced to retain a spherical shape (most volume for constant surface area). When such a ball hits a surface there is a distortion around the point of contact, and the higher the pressure the more rapidly the spherical shape is restored, which forces the ball to reverse its motion all the more rapidly. A deflated ball has no such pressure and won't bounce at all.

Also more probabilities are there for how air pressure effects on a basketball. The reasons may be as follows:

When a basketball is released, its own body goes down due to gravitational attraction. On the other hand, the air in the ball goes down after it as its weight is less than the ball. So the air will give an upward pressure which will effect the downward motion of the basketball. Again when the ball bounces up, a moment before that bounce, the air inside will start to come down quickly for repelling from the inside upward surface of the ball. Now when the ball goes up, the downward pressure of the air effects the ball.

Answer 2

Yes.

Generally the higher the air pressure, the higher the ball will bouncedue to their being less surface area when the ball hits the ground which means less friction to slow the ball.

Consiquently the lower the air pressure the lower the ball will bounce.

due to there being more surface area and more friction.

yes that is right but if you have a different air pump different basketball or different surface will change the whole thing

Answer 3

my guess is that the type of surface has only a very minor impact on the height of the bounce. But directly related to the surface is the material the ball is made of. This could have a measurable effect (the materials elasticity).

Other parameters to investigate would be for example:

pressure of the air (how hard it is pumped up)

height from where it is dropped

(partial) filling with water (BEWARE: Could ruin the ball, use old discarded balls for this) meaning less air, more weight

boucing a ball from another ball lying on the ground (might be very tricky to achieve)

Be creative but keep clear and precise records of your experiments.

Even if something has no measurable effect, that is a scientific result, too!

Answer 4

The air pressure in a basketball is going to affect a free throw shot. A ball that is low on air is going to be heavier and harder to throw the distance to get from the free throw line to the basket.

Answer 5

The more air pressure in the ball,the tighter the skin of the ball is. If the skin is very tight, there is less absorption of the energy in deformation of the skin. Thus there is more energy available for bouncing the ball back up again.

Answer 6

The air pressure in the ball can affect a shot, but rarely and very little. Only if the ball is very flat can you notice a big change in the shot.

Answer 7

the ball wont bounce high enough for you to bounce it.

Answer 8

the more air pressure that better it bounces

Answer 9

shaun carmicheal ain't got no shoot and he a turtle

Answer 10

I think if you put air in the basketball you can shoot better and if you don't put air you will you will have flat ball.