yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

The Physics Of Basketball | StarTalk


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

We're exploring the physics of basketball, featuring my interview with NBA All-Star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Check it out. A rebound—in basketball, you have to get a sense of how the thing is going to bounce before the thing makes that bounce so that you can be in the right place at the right time.

What's going through your head when you—how many rebounds? Was it a billion? I think 17,000. 17,000 rebounds. The angle in equals the angle out. So if a shot comes from this angle at the basket, the probability is it's going to take the same angle coming off the other side.

By the way, that's a law. That's a law of optics. The angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. Right, and it's like a mirror. So you have to understand the angle it's going to come off and then the distance from the rim and backboard that you need to be at to have the optimum opportunity to collect the rebound.

Plus, 101-inch wingspan. [laughs] Well, it helps, but the ability to anticipate is—so we can spend 10 minutes you telling me, I calculate the angle, but then really, I just reach out and grab the ball. No.

There's some people that just stand there. You've got to move. So you were particularly potent because you basically combined your 100-inch wingspan with the knowledge of angle of incidence and angle of reflection.

Right, and what we call hops. What we call hops. Chuck, what are hops? That's a new word for me. In my day, I don't know that I used that word, hops. Hops is—that's your vertical.

  • Vertical? - Yeah, basically. Hang time? Vertical? Yeah, yo. Bro got hops. Like, yeah, you can get up. That's when you play above the rim. You get hops, you know?

He just told me a little bit about his game. Ooh. You weren't a leaper. No. No. I just—where I grew up, we didn't have that word. We didn't use that word. Yeah, that's called dis. But I could jump.

All right. No. I could dunk the ball in ninth grade. So you had hops. That's all there is to it.

  • Yeah. So you know—I did not have hops. [laughs]

More Articles

View All
What Month Begins the New Year? | National Geographic
Looking for an interesting fact to share at your New Year’s party? How about this: New Year’s Day hasn’t always been celebrated on January 1st. The new year that many cultures celebrate falls on January 1st, but this only came into effect in 46 BC when Ju…
Why I'm Leaving California
Growing number of its residents are packing up and moving out. Experts say over the past decade, around 150,000 people have left the state. The U.S. Census Bureau says California had a net loss of 190,000 people last year. “I’m out of here. When do you l…
LearnStorm Growth Mindset: Khan Academy's humanities content creator on social belonging
Hey, I’m Kim Kutz Elliott and I work on humanities content at Khan Academy. So yeah, I thought about things that were really difficult for me. One thing, um, that was hard for me was class discussion because I went to this history class, and I swear that…
See the Extreme Ice Changes Near the Antarctic Peninsula | Short Film Showcase
[Music] We’re here for a 3-week expedition to deploy some time-lapse cameras on the Antarctic Peninsula and on South [Music] Georgia. We’ve already told a powerful story of what’s going on way up North. I’ve always wanted to tell the story of what’s going…
How The Immune System ACTUALLY Works – IMMUNE
The human immune system is the most complex biological system we know after the human brain, and yet most of us never learn how it works or what it is. Your immune system consists of hundreds of tiny and two large organs. It has its own transport network …
Saving Manatees: What It Takes - Meet the Expert | National Geographic
So good to see you all again! I’m so excited for this time every week. Um, we get the opportunity to chat to a wonderful scientist, or expert, or conservationist live somewhere in the world, and we get to chat about some of their awesome research projects…