What’s amazing is our ability to calculate the path of something in the air.
There’s a test they did with Cristiano Ronaldo where someone kicked a ball to him so he could head it. They shut off the lights before the ball was in the air and somehow from the body shape of the person kicking it, he was able to know how to make contact with it without being able to see it.
Pretty impressive. I think they’re underestimating/ignoring the input from hearing, especially with the second one where he probably (subconsciously, of course) heard the ball bounce near his foot. Plus the subtle changes in air pressure around his legs to tell where the ball is, etc.
Cool video, thanks.
Edit: Still watching as they’re analyzing his free kick. Cool shit. The human body is wild.
One thing I don’t really see people talk about is how Ronaldo (and other soccer/football players) use their opposing leg to kind of hop up and dissipate any energy that they didn’t transfer into the ball. Fucking cool. You don’t even realize it’s happening.
I haven’t seen any videos on it, but I remember doing kinematics problems in school involving baseball pitchers and how they throw, and it is actually insane. Each joint and section of the pitcher’s arm is like perfectly timed to provide the most velocity to the projectile. So you add up the momentum from the swinging shoulder to the momentum from the elbow to the momentum from the wrist, to the momentum and spin from the fingertips. Baseball is boring as shit, but the physics behind pitching is cool af.
![[Thread] Mental Math](https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/4a605b7b-7272-471f-ac11-37366ac7d8bd.png){kind=link}
What’s amazing is our ability to calculate the path of something in the air.
There’s a test they did with Cristiano Ronaldo where someone kicked a ball to him so he could head it. They shut off the lights before the ball was in the air and somehow from the body shape of the person kicking it, he was able to know how to make contact with it without being able to see it.
https://youtu.be/0k2ey_okQ4E?t=1255
Pretty impressive. I think they’re underestimating/ignoring the input from hearing, especially with the second one where he probably (subconsciously, of course) heard the ball bounce near his foot. Plus the subtle changes in air pressure around his legs to tell where the ball is, etc.
Cool video, thanks.
Edit: Still watching as they’re analyzing his free kick. Cool shit. The human body is wild.
One thing I don’t really see people talk about is how Ronaldo (and other soccer/football players) use their opposing leg to kind of hop up and dissipate any energy that they didn’t transfer into the ball. Fucking cool. You don’t even realize it’s happening.
I haven’t seen any videos on it, but I remember doing kinematics problems in school involving baseball pitchers and how they throw, and it is actually insane. Each joint and section of the pitcher’s arm is like perfectly timed to provide the most velocity to the projectile. So you add up the momentum from the swinging shoulder to the momentum from the elbow to the momentum from the wrist, to the momentum and spin from the fingertips. Baseball is boring as shit, but the physics behind pitching is cool af.
I’m not a fan of Ronaldo but that was very cool to watch, thanks for sharing!