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Language: en
a portion of this video was sponsored by
Salesforce this is the biggest most
in-depth video about bowling ever how
bowling balls are made the best way to
throw them maximize strikes how the
lanes are oiled what it takes to be a
pro and how this sport has continually
been reinvented for literally thousands
of years up to the present
day this is the science of bowling the
most popular participatory sport in the
United
States I'm super impressed with how that
went I'm I'm even more impressed than
you are what is inside a bowling ball I
sent this ball to creative electron to
get a 3D X-Ray Scan and this is the
result what is that I always expected
bowling balls to be you know perfect
solid spheres but there's something
inside here and it's not symmetric and
it's not even centered in the ball so I
went to Storm bowling one of only 11
bowling ball manufacturers in the world
to find out how bowling balls are made
yeah basically when we make bowling
balls we always start in the center and
the center part of the bowling ball is
the weight block and as you can see this
is an example of an asymmetrical shaped
weight block so it's actually a
different shape about the X the Y and
the Z
axis the weight blocks are embedded in a
core of lightweight glass
beads oh
that is so silky soft I feel like I have
not felt anything this soft what's the
difference in density between this sort
of filler material and this core it's
quite a bit about 2 and 1 half to three
times more dense in the inner weight
block than it is in the core
material if you were to look for example
at this actual core number one it says
960 which means that it weighs 9.60 lb
and then the description here underneath
which is a 03 this indicates what type
of a weight block is inside of
it what happens over here so this area
right here is our urethane area so
basically what we have are a number of
different tanks that are set up so
there's a chemical reaction that occurs
once it actually fills the mold and we
pour that cover stock material around
the core it gets extremely hot in just a
matter of
minute you go right down here she's
actually pouring the pin material inside
the the tops of those pores so you can
see for this particular bowling ball
it's a bright orange type of a material
and she's actually filling that hole
with that plug
material we've got the lathe right here
which is where we take the balls that
come out of the mold then actually they
spin almost 2,000 RPMs on top of there
there's the blades that come around and
it actually makes the balls perfectly
round so they'll actually trim those up
since the balls are not symmetric they
are heavier on one side than the other
and you you can see there the last four
or five pumps of air where it actually
floats the air then it stops and pauses
that the ball has completely settled and
then basically a needle will come out
from the bottom part and all of a sudden
it'll shoot it up then it'll be where
the center of gravity is on the surface
of the ball
yeah when it comes right off the lathe
right here it is extremely porous and
very very dull and there is a ton of
friction between the ball and the lane
at this point so every ball from right
here will be smoothed up it's just a
matter of how much is going to be
smoothed up in order to get what is the
desired
finish but before they can use these
balls they have to be drilled but that
is specific to each
bowler how many balls are you making a
day we're making over 3,000 balls in a
day now uh that come out of this plant
right
here this is
wild I found the bowling ball equivalent
of clickbait you won't believe your eyes
the mindbending
hook right yeah it's how you have to
sell your stuff I get it exactly yeah
but how did it come to be this
way well bowling seems to be an ancient
game archaeologists have found wall
drawings of a sport that looks like
bowling in an ancient Egyptian tomb
dating back 7,000 years in Germany
bowling was used as a religious ritual
pins represented your sins so you're a
good Christian if you could knock them
all down Martin Luther himself was
apparently a bowling fanatic and fixed
the number of pins at nine when the game
made its way over to America nine Pin
bowling was banned because it promoted
gambling the legend goes that people
cleverly came up with 10 Pin bowling to
get around the law whoa totally
different game today in the US ninepin
bowling is only played in Texas because
it was the one state that didn't ban it
instead charging attack
bowling lanes are about 3 1/2 ft wide
and 60 ft long down to the head pin I'm
using imperial units here because that's
actually how they're defined the lane is
made of 39 narrow boards that Bowlers
number for reference they used to be
made of Maple and Pinewood but these
days most lanes are synthetic and made
of fine particles coated with melamine
resin one game of bowling gives you 10
frames with two throws per frame to try
to knock down all 10 pins
the highest score you can get in a game
without a strike is only 190 but strikes
allow you to double count your next two
throws so a perfect game with all
strikes gives you a score of
300 if you're anything like me the whole
game is just trying to throw the ball as
straight as you can down the middle of
the lane hit the head pin and try to
take as many other pins down with it as
possible if you want to give me any tips
or I've watched LeBron Bowl you won't be
worse than him I you say that now
see that's what I would normally do and
I would normally be like reasonably
happy with a shot like that but for pro
bowlers like Pete Weber or Chris Barnes
for a perfect game yes the game is
different and not just because they are
way better than me you got
it who Do You Think You Are I
Am get it right hitting the headpin
square on is not the perfect
strategy if you hit the head pins Square
on going straight you're unlikely to
knock down all the pins you could end up
with a split where the ball goes through
the middle or where the ball deflecting
off to one side after hitting the head
pin chances for a strike are much higher
if the center of the ball hits the pins
just to one side of the head pin board
17 and A2 in which case the ball takes
out the 1 3 5 and nine pins which take
out the others so we want the ball to
hit the one pin the three the pin behind
the one which is the five pin and then
the nine or the eight and the nine you
want the ball to hit all of those pins
yeah now the pins don't always fall this
way but the PIN shape helps pins roll in
circles like eggs which help knock down
the
others seven pins yeah that's right baby
come on don't miss you wanted it you got
it but to have an over 90% chance of
getting a strike the center of the ball
has to hit with an error smaller than
half a board needless to say throwing a
ball 60 ft straight at a Target smaller
than a dime is a tough task especially
to do it
consistently luckily there is a better
way now if we look at the pins and as
you look at them from here from straight
on the spot between the head pin the one
that's in the center and the three pin
which is just right of that that gap's
pretty narrow but as the ball hooks more
now we basically shift over and now that
space is considerably wider if you can
hit the pins not head on but at an angle
of 6° you dramatically increase your
chances of knocking them all down now
the margin for error is greater the ball
can be coming in anywhere from board 17
to
182 that is a board and a half of room
and that still gives you greater than a
90% chance of a strike now 6° may not
sound like a lot but it's actually
extremely difficult to hit the problem
is if you wanted to throw the ball
straight at the pins and hit them at 6°
you would have to be bowling from 3/4
over on the next Lane and that is
impossible what with the two gutters in
between and all so the solution is
you've got to curve the ball on one lane
I feel like I have never spun a ball is
that is that hard so if you got it under
your can and the ball's underneath and
you're trying to spin it yep that's
basically the motion that players use
these days this really became a big part
of the sport by accident the wood gets
beat up with the damage from all the
balls going into it and so they
basically created slip agents lubricants
much like oil and a car so that the
lanes didn't get damaged so quickly so
the original idea was to protect the
wood the original idea was just to
protect the surface of the lane it was
not to manufacture anything from a
competitive scoring type environment but
applying oil to protect the wood meant
that balls no longer gri the lane and
rolled without slipping down to the pins
instead they could skid rotating not in
their direction of
travel now I've been to a lot of bowling
alleys before making this video and I
noticed it was a bit greasy but I always
thought that was just the nature of
bowling alleys like the stinky rental
shoes I didn't know they intentionally
put oil on the lanes Vox has a great
video specifically about oil patterns
these days there are machines
specifically for applying oil to the
lanes and then as priors went huh well
yeah it does make the ball skid well if
I put more in the middle than the
outside well my Bowlers bowl a little
bit better and they're happier and then
as technology advances like everything
does now we have $30,000 Lane machines
that can put a specific amount of oil on
each board they work kind of like dot
matrix printers they can lay the oil on
with varying degrees of thickness across
the lane and extend the oil pattern
different distances there are hundreds
of different patterns that can be used
usually the oil extends about 2/3 the
way down the lane so to around 40 or 45
ft but there's always a dry patch of
wood before the pins that increases the
friction with the ball getting it to
start rolling without
slipping and this leads to the three
parts of any pro Bowers
throw the
skid The Hook and the
roll when a bowler releases the ball it
can be going 20 M an hour and spinning
at 500 RPM that's nearly 10 full reol
Solutions per second right-handers
typically throw the ball to the right on
the lane while spinning it to the left
during the skid phase the ball slides
down the lane spinning but not rolling
as it comes to the end of the oil the
friction increases and the ball
accelerates to the left it hooks because
of its Spin and the spin starts lining
up with the direction of travel leading
to stage three roll the ball is rolling
without slipping as it barrels into the
pins ideally as close to that 6° angle
as
possible like the ball starts on the
left side of the lane goes straight
across almost rightmost then hooks like
at the last minute rolls in there so
that's that's almost like a perfect shot
right like straight in the pocket there
yeah that's where you want to hit the
pins
yeah my very first game is it was ABC
back then American buling in Congress I
filled out the application to bowling
men's league dad gave him the letter
saying that I could and the first game I
bowled was 300 they handed me $100 too
and it was like yeah making money now
actually my my first my sixth my 9th my
13th 17th 20th were all 300 games I had
like seven or eight 300s in the my first
year of men's league how do you explain
that to shoot 300 you have to get lucky
some somewhere along the
line like that like that it came in hit
the
1359 and that that's what we call the
perfect
shot I mean you just keep hitting him
not me that's almost the identical shot
very close look at that yellow and the
purple they're almost exactly on top of
each other that just goes
that one the purple one was just a
little bit higher on the head pin but it
still hit the 1 three and the five and
the
nine can't get much
better this type of throw is only
possible because of the oil if you try
to throw a ball the same way on an
unoiled Lane oh no it just doesn't work
can I actually ask you to bowl like you
normally would but on the dry
Lane I know it's crazy I just want to
see what like a normal shot would look
like if there were no oil there no oil
it's going to hit the Lane and go in the
left gutter that's what I want to see
all right you're going to throw it just
like it's a regular Lane yeah all
[Music]
right well yeah there no oil on the lane
so the ball can't get down as soon as it
hits the lane it's going to start
hooking you know cuz if you do this
who's going to want a bowl on this so
they want the oil yeah we need the oil
if we didn't have oil this is what it
would be and nobody'd have
fun this is this is not fun sucks we
don't want to do
this for pro bowlers the oil on the lane
is a key part of the
game oh
wow wow hey do you like look at the oil
or you trying to scope it out or you
just kind of guessing I usually don't
look at the oil I let my ball be the
guide you know I know some guys that are
you know get down like this and they're
looking and it's like well you know to
they're seeing the same thing I do when
I sit down I go like that nothing I see
absolutely nothing whether you can see
it or not figuring out the condition of
oil on the lane can make the difference
between a strike and a
miss as the game wears on the bowling
balls move the oil around pushing it
further down the lane and stripping it
off the most common
paths so players have to adjust to the
changing conditions some people say
left-handers have an advantage because
well right-handers aren't playing on
their side of the lane at most bowling
alleys they use a pattern of oil that is
thicker in the middle and thinner out
toward the edges this is a forgiving
layout because balls that drift too far
out start to hook earlier while balls
going straighter can continue down the
lane for longer before making their turn
into the pins but for pro bowlers the
oil conditions vary and players have to
adjust their games to the conditions
some people seem to think that like
League Bowlers are better than they are
maybe cuz they say like oh this league
bowler can shoot 210 and I just saw a
pro shoot 210 that's why they call it
League because you bowl on the same shot
every week cuz each week on tour I'm
bowling on a different condition not the
same condition every week we have what
cheetah chameleon scorpion shark there's
one more in there bear bear yeah but
it's not just the oil on the lanes that
is transformed bowling it's also the
balls themselves hard rubber bowling
balls was what I started with maybe mid
'70s and then the yellow dot the columia
yellow dot which is a plastic ball then
they came out with urethane bowling
balls I won a lot of titles with the
urethane stuff then they come out with
the reactive resin bowling balls
reactive resin is just a modified
polyurethane with a more porous surface
which gives it more grip in the oil it's
the most popular surface or cover stock
for bowling balls today balls started
out as perfect symmetrically weighted
spheres and when you go to a bowling
alley the house balls there are still
just that but when you drill holes in
the ball you take some weight out of one
side so to rebalance it ball
manufacturers added a small pancake
weight on the same side as the holes but
then ball manufacturers got the idea
they could add different weights inside
the ball to improve their performance
you can have two balls that look
identical from the outside weigh exactly
the same amount and yet roll differently
if the mass is more concentrated around
the axis of rotation say you have a
dense cylinder inside the ball well then
it has a lower moment of inertia and
this means for the same amount of energy
input it will spin faster in Bowling
they prefer to talk about an analogous
concept radius of gyration or RG if you
were to concentrate the entire mass of
the ball onto a hoop with the same
moment of inertia its radius would be
the radius of gyration so smaller radius
of gyration just means lower moment of
inertia which translates into more
rotation that a bowler can get on the
ball some people at lower rid think well
it just spins faster like that's kind of
crazy and then somebody finally did a
study and then it turns out yeah it's
like 8% you know for every
0.05 and so depending on which R it is
it can be fairly significant an ability
to spin the balls faster gives a bowler
the ability to hook the ball more
sharply for further down the lane giving
them a better chance of achieving that
6° entry angle what was amazing for me
to learn is that the weight blocks in
these balls aren't even centered there's
a heavy side and a lighter side on
purpose and you can find and Mark this
side by letting the ball spin freely on
a cushion of air until it comes to rest
heavys side down they showed me a great
demonstration of how the position of the
center of gravity can affect the
movement of the
ball when the center of mass is on the
left side of the ball it pulls in the
same direction as the spin helping the
ball hooked to the left into the pins
same exact ball same numbers just
different static IM balance basically
but here is a flipped bowling ball where
the center of mass is on the right now
the ball starts to hook into the left
but at the end something weird happens
no the center of mass pulls it over to
the right this effect is only really
noticeable when the ball is thrown
slowly these days there are tons of
different weight blocks that go inside
bowling balls and they can be grouped
into two categories symmetric and
asymmetric for all these weight blocks
the minimum moment of inertia or in
Bowling terms the smallest RG axis is
identified by a pin which is visible on
the outside of the ball it will spin
most easily about this axis for the
symmetric weight blocks the ball doesn't
change as you rotate it about this axis
so the maximum moment of inertia is
rotating about any axis that passes
through the equator of the ball I
certainly didn't expect bowling balls to
have asymmetric cores but it turns out
what look like perfect spheres actually
have three different principal axes of
rotation minimum moment of inertia
maximum moment of inertia and
intermediate moment of inertia so this
right here is our dark code this is one
of our asymmetric BS that has a rad four
core in it so this has a preferred spin
axis and what we're going to do now is
we're going to put it on the
determinator and show how it actually
will spin it and find it no matter how
we position it on
there so you spin them up on this
machine until they settle into the way
they like to spin what the bowlers call
their preferred spin Axis or PSA but why
would you want a ball to be an
asymmetric top well professional bowlers
drill their balls so that at launch the
axis of rotation is somewhere between
the minimum and maximum moment of
inertia and as a result as the ball goes
down the lane spinning it processes like
a gyroscope the axis of rotation rotates
around causing the point of contact
between the ball and the lane to change
this procession means that different
parts of the ball contact the lane and
you can see this when the ball comes
back by the spread out lines of oil on
the ball's surface Bowlers call this
track flare and it's desirable because
it means once the ball hits the unoiled
part of the lane it gets traction faster
and hooks more dramatically back to the
pins this is what asymmetric cores are
used for they have larger differences
between their moments of inertia in
different axes or what Bowlers call RG
differential which makes the ball
process if you spin a ball around its
minimum or maximum moment of inertia it
processes less and there's much less
flare meaning oil builds up on one part
of the ball this reduces the friction
over the dry part of the lane so the
ball hooks less see the oil there very
faintly but it's pretty much next to the
finger right next to the thumb and it
just continues to be right that way all
the way around the ball but how
important are each of these factors in
actually getting the best shot well the
US bowling Congress or USBC the
governing body that sets all rules and
regulations for us bowling they did a
landmark study in 2008 trying to tease
out the most significant factors that
affect ball Motion in order to determine
the impact of each factor they had to
make sure the throws were identical so
they turned to Harry at the time the
most consistent bowler in the world he
is a
robot bowling robots are designed to be
able to throw hundreds of identical
shots in fact the robot Earl Harry's
successor in 2011 actually lost to Chris
Barnes when he debuted in part because
his throws were so consistent he wore
away the oil in a single part of the
lane so his shots hooked too much the
people managing him did their best to
adjust to the oil conditions but few
people are Chris
Barnes the USBC ball motion study used
Harry to throw thousands of shots with
different bowling balls and they found
that the center of gravity affected the
ball motion relatively little around the
same level as environmental factors like
room temperature or humidity RG and RG
differential essentially the moment of
inertia and difference between maximum
and minimum moments of inertia
that affected the ball motion
significantly more but the factor that
affected ball motion the most was the
surface of the ball the top five
individual factors were the amplitude of
surface roughness meaning the height of
microscopic spikes on the ball the
coefficient of friction with an oil Lane
the surface roughness by spacing that is
the distance between microscopic spikes
the coefficient of friction with a dry
Lane and how quickly the ball surface
absorbs oil now Bowlers recognize just
how important the surface of their ball
is they pay close attention to what it's
made of and how it's finished rougher
finishes give the ball more traction in
the oil and get it to start hooking
earlier this is useful for long oil
patterns and slower axis rotation
sometimes uh maybe I'll go to a little
more sanded ball or a little more ball
with surface to get it into a roll
quicker for me because I use a lot of
oil these two shots are thrown
identically the only difference is the
ball on the left has a rougher
surface rough surfaces act like winter
tires helping to dig into the oil and
give the ball traction they also act as
badly as winter tires on a clean Road on
a totally dry Lane they actually have
less friction because their rougher
exteriors mean that less surface area is
touching the
lane you can get many different levels
of smoothness up to a near mirror shine
this is better for short oil patterns to
prevent the ball hooking too much too
early ultimately pro bowlers carry many
different balls to each competition I'm
not afraid to change balls in the middle
of a game if I go to a game and I've got
like eight spare eight spare eight all
right it's time to change balls yeah so
now I got to find the right ball to get
down the lane again and find the pocket
which usually I have a pretty good idea
so they select their ball a little like
a golfer selects their Club to suit the
conditions but does all this Tech
actually make people better Bowlers well
over the last 20 years average scores
have increased by more than five points
plus the number of perfect 300 games
bowled per year per thousand Bowlers has
increased dramatically since the
1980s this graph shows the percent
change year over-year in 1976 Soaker
balls balls chemically softened to
absorb oil and hook more were banned and
there was a dip in perfect game games
but the same year a new rubber ball was
introduced the Brunswick lt48 and more
300s were hit in the years that followed
in 1991 reactive resin balls were
introduced and there was another
significant jump now obviously there
were other improvements in equipment and
natural variability but some of the big
changes do correlate with the
introduction of new ball technology so
yes the wild bowling ball Technologies
out there especially anything to do with
surface significant affect ball motion
and your bowling game but ball motion is
likely minutely affected by hundreds of
other factors even the color of the ball
can have a small impact a USBC study in
2016 found that different pigments
absorb oil at different rates bowling is
the sport of reinvention it goes back to
ancient Egypt but has transformed many
times now when you get up to throw a
single shot you have to think about the
oil pattern on the lane the stage of the
game and how the pattern has shifted the
weight Block in your ball whether you
want symmetric or asymmetric which axis
you'll spin it about to affect
procession where the center of mass is
to pull the ball to the left to the
right where the cover stock is made of
and whether it's rough or smooth all to
make a shot that skids Hooks and rolls
to the pins between boards 17 and 18 and
1 12 at as close to a 6° angle as you
can
muster now do that again 12 times in a
row and you have a perfect
game hey this portion of the video was
sponsored by Salesforce bowling may be
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thank Salesforce for sponsoring this
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