Endless belt and release physics

[Mike O]

Mike

You don't have to apologize for being blunt. I encourage all forum members to attack my arguments rigorously without restraint, because I believe so strongly in the Popperian falsification principle. My ideas/opinions are only valid to the extent that they cannot be falsified, and I don't know if they can be falsified if people don't vigorously challenge my opinions.

When I stated that my knowledge of physics-terms could be inexact, then it doesn't mean that I am knowingly using those "terms" imprecisely. My understanding of the term "angular acceleration" is totally compatible with the Wikipedia definition. However, I believe that angular acceleration doesn't always refer to a point-object moving around a "fixed" point in a circular motion, but it can also apply to a linear structure (eg. clubshaft) moving around a fulcrum hinge point (eg. hands) which is itself in motion. In nm golfer's mathematical explanation, he is referring to the clubshaft when he talks about angular acceleration, and not solely the clubhead. When I stated that one can see the clubhead progressively moving a greater distance per unit time during the release phase, and that this represents angular acceleration, I really meant that the clubhead is a "marker" for the rate of angular acceleration of the clubshaft, which means that the grip end of the club must be experiencing the same degree of angular acceleration as the clubhead end (because they are both simply point-locations on the same clubshaft).

I therefore don't understand your comment-: "For example in regards to the Bobby Jones photo the end of the clubshaft and the clubhead are picking up angular acceleration but the grip end of the shaft is not picking up angular acceleration."
Jeff.

The way that I measured angular acceleration was to measure the distance between each clubhead (during release) on the Bobby Jones sequence via a paper and pencil on my computer screen. I concluded that there was angular acceleration of the clubhead i.e. the distances between each clubhead was increasing during release but no angular acceleration of the hands or grip end of the club i.e. when I measured the distance between them there was no increase in distance.

Now, if the grip was the center of rotation and the shaft was rotating around the grip end- then in that simple experiment- the whole shaft or any portion of the shaft would have the same angular acceleration. However, in the golf swing with #2 and #3 accumulators releasing and various other mechanical features happening simultaneously- you don't have or don't have to have a situation where both ends of the club have the same angular acceleration. Said another way- in a single center rotating system all points of rotation will have the same angular acceleration. However, in a multiple center(s) rotating system- not all of the points in rotation have to have the same angular acceleration. And the golf swing is a multiple center rotating system.