World's Fastest Pitch - Supersonic Baseball Cannon - Smarter Every Day 242

Hey, it's me, Destin. Welcome back to Smarter Every Day. You read the title of the video, didn't you? You know what's about to happen. Here's the deal, though. I've got to explain it to you. This is not some dude trying to make an internet video. This is me trying to answer a question that I've wanted to know my entire life. What happens when a baseball goes past the speed of sound? And there's very specific reasons why I want to know this. This is a Smarter Every Day baseball, by the way; more about that later.

When I was a kid, I did a book report on this book: "Nolan Ryan Strikeout King." And I learned that in 1974, Nolan Ryan, while playing for the Angels, threw the first recorded baseball past a hundred miles per hour. After learning about that pitch, every time I stepped onto the field, I thought about the ballistics of throwing a baseball through the air. When I went forward into school, I started learning about aerodynamics, and I realized there was math associated with all this stuff. I started to learn these equations, and I fell in love with the mechanics of how things fly through the air, to the point where, as a part of my job as a developmental weapons tester, I developed a pretty intimate relationship with air cannons. This is me in a German air cannon.

Anyway, here's the deal. If you were to draw a Venn diagram of everything I love— aerodynamics, baseball, air cannons—right in the center of all that is the Supersonic Baseball Cannon. So today's video had to happen for me. I have to know what happens when a baseball goes past the speed of sound. Like, does the cover rip off because of the shockwave? What exactly happens when this thing goes Mach one? Let's go learn and get Smarter Every Day.

[Guitar theme music]

In an earlier episode of Smarter Every Day, we made a golf ball air cannon. We put a golf ball in there, pressurized one side, and put tape over the end. We use the vacuum pump to pull a vacuum inside of a barrel. When we release that pressure, the golf ball will accelerate down the barrel, rupture the tape, and exit at an incredible velocity. What we want to do here is basically the same thing, only at a much larger scale. The baseball is 1.6 times larger than the golf ball and three times as heavy. Mach One is 767 miles an hour. So, in order to do this, we have to do some serious engineering.

So I got some buddies to help me out, and we started brainstorming. You'll remember David from the vortex collision device, Jeremy Fielding from the mad batter, and Trent from the lawn tool videos.

(David) If you got holes in there, it's got to go around corners.
(Destin) Okay, so imagine this... Imagine. So right now we've got pipe and then we're pulling the plug out [FOOMP] and then all the air rushes in the end there, right?
(David) Yeah. What if we have the pipe all the way inside the tank?
(David) This really is just a cone to make sure...
(Destin) Guide it in there...
(David) ...to reengage the barrel every time. And it also retains the seal. And we may be able to get supersonic velocity with air just because of the vacuum here, and because of the Venturi.
(Jeremy) As soon as I start modeling, I'm going to have a bunch of questions. Because at that point I'm putting screws there. I'm putting like, where ... How do you make it?
(David) It's going to be long
(Trent) Just get a longer trailer, man...
(Destin) Just get a longer trailer... We need to talk about that.

So I've been successful in uniting you both against me. So it sounds like we're ready to go. [Everyone laughing]

(David) Now that we've decided how we're going to do it, we'll tell Destin what we came up with. Okay. I want to show you how this thing works because it's awesome. This is the SolidWorks model. And we're going to cut this thing in half and we're going to zoom in right here and show you what it looks like on the inside. The whole idea here is we want that baseball to go stupid fast. So to do that, we needed a whole lot of air on one side and not a lot of air on the other. That difference in pressure will make it go. This seal right here is how we create that difference in pressure. We can pressurize the tank on the left here, and then we pull a vacuum on the barrel on the right when we're ready to fire. If we pull that rod back, it'll break the seal, dumping all that air behind the baseball and off she goes.

Pressurizing this tank is a little bit harder than it might seem because you have several different places air could leak out. We have a gasket here, here, here, and a dynamic seal on the rod back here. So when we pressurize that tank, it's going to try to push that rod out the back of the tank, just like a syringe... which sounds like a bad thing, but it's actually good because we're going to use that force to try to pop the cork on the baseball even faster.

To do this, we designed this sear mechanism at the back of the tank. We push the rod into place really hard. And then we compress that front gasket, making a seal behind the baseball. We then click up this little thing and it holds everything together. If we get all the alignment right, since it's one long rod that keeps the gasket in the front sealed until the moment we want to release it, we then pressurize everything in the tank. And then we release that sear and it'll dump all the air into the baseball. So it goes stupid fast.

The problem is now the rod is free, and it starts to move back very fast, and it's so heavy. It could break stuff. So to fix that, we have this shock absorber in the back that we can tune with a valve to try to slow down and stop the rod. Let's go forward and look at some of the cool things we did to the vacuum side on the barrel.

With the golf ball cannon, when we looked at the slow-mo, I observed that as the ball got closer to the end of the barrel, it started to inflate the tape. Kind of like a balloon... that told me that there was still air inside the barrel, meaning we were losing some of the velocity in the barrel due to drag. In an effort to get rid of any extra air in this 20-foot-long barrel, we had two extra vacuum volumes on the front. We've got this big cylinder up front here. And then we have this big red box beam underneath the barrel. The idea is, as the ball goes down that 20-foot-long barrel, if there's any extra air in there, it has a place to go.

I don't really know if this part is going to work. I honestly just kind of made it up, but it makes sense. You want to suck the ball to the end of the barrel and you want to, like, get rid of the air that's in the way. So you've got what I call "extra vacuum ullage." Anyway, it doesn't matter.

BUILD MONTAGE.

[Happy banjo music and machine noises]

Since the dawn of blacksmithing, the relationship between welders and engineers has been contentious, wouldn't you say? [Laughter] [Banjo music continues]

(Destin) You laughing at us?
(Welder) We like to see engineers work. We don't get to see that very often. [Banjo music continues]

Okay. Moment of truth. We're going to pressurize this thing. The question here is... we've got that rod running all the way through. Does the pressure seal off right here where that plug is? And also do our seals back here work? What do you think? 300 PSI? Yeah, that sounds like a good test. IT IS TIME.

The moment we've been waiting for. Oh my goodness. Look at that. Oh dude.
(Jeremy) Oh it's moving now!
(Destin) Oh dude. What hath we wrought? Going up!
(Destin) Oh, dude...
(Jeremy) This is insane, man... This is insane.
(Destin) Oh, golly, guys. Okay, here we go. Mark 1 Supersonic Baseball Cannon. Take one. Baseball's loaded, goggle up, guys. Science is about to happen. Here we go. [hissing gasses filling tank] It appears to be holding all right, so first shot 300 PSI.
(Jeremy) It's definitely quiet. I don't hear anything up here.
(Destin) No leaking? You guys ready? Three, two, one.

[SUPER LOUD BLAST]

[excited redneck noises]

[grown men losing the ability to communicate]

OH MY GOSH. Oh my goodness. I think we need to paint this thing and we need to get out in a more scientific environment and probably get the high-speed camera out and see what's going on. But this is NUTS. Okay, we have the thing built. We have all of the baseballs ordered. That is a ton of baseballs. They're really cool, by the way. They have a Smarter Every Day logo on one side and the Rocket City Trash Pandas on the other. More about that later. There's a way you can actually get one of these baseballs. Anyway, now that we built it, we have to control it.

This is what we want to do. We want to make a controller for the whole thing. We need gauges all in one location so we can monitor the chamber pressure. We also need to know the vacuum pressure in the barrel itself. We need to have all of this information in one location so that when it comes time to hit the big red button and send this baseball at supersonic velocities, we'll have it all right there in one spot.

So we painted the cannon. We did some low-pressure testing, which I'm sure the neighbors blamed on Redstone Arsenal nearby. And I dubbed it "The Mark One Supersonic Baseball Cannon." Today is the day we're going to shoot the first baseball in a relatively controlled environment. So the goal for today is just to see if we can get above the speed of sound in one shot with nitrogen. I doubt we can. This is Trent setting up the Schlieren here. We've got this mirror, and we're just going to see if we can see the shockwave go across and the shadow graph of the baseball.

We're shooting with nitrogen. The reason we're shooting with nitrogen is the molecular weight is around 28. Jeremy's excited. Are you excited?

• Definitely excited.
• We are excited.

We're going to be shooting with nitrogen because the speed of sound of nitrogen is higher than the speed of sound in air. Interestingly, I learned this: the speed of sound in humid air is higher than dry air. Anyway, what I'm going to do is... because we're going to be pressurizing that thing really high, we're going to be setting this thing up as a place to get behind when we are getting ready to shoot.

I've got to focus on what I'm doing. Can you spin this at a 45 the other way? Uh, orthogonal to the gun coming down. If that thing blows up, we don't want Destin and Jeremy soup back here. Alright, so let's get ready for the shot. We are using a single light-source for our Schlieren setup. So, that's a fiber optic light. The fiber optic light goes and bounces off the mirror, comes back. We're cutting the light with that razor right there.

It's hard to see because I was in the way. Trent, do you mind getting the matches?
(Trent) Yep! I have it.

But what happens is, if you look here at our Schlieren setup, Trent's gonna light the matches right there. You should see a double. Yeah. Hold it up just a little bit. There you go. See the double match? That's because there's a shadow going across the match and then coming back through the match.

So let's talk through what we're about to see. There's some stuff going on here. So back when Nolan Ryan used to pitch, they would measure the speed of the pitch at the plate. Um, now they measure the speed of the pitch at the hand. This is important because I don't think what we're about to do is going to be supersonic. This is day one; we're ringing everything out. I'm going to come out here and fiddle in the field for however many weeks it takes to get the exact shot I'm looking for, which is a shockwave over the baseball.

So what I think is going to happen is we've got the baseball as it exits here. I think it's going to exit supersonic just because of the speed of sound in nitrogen. But the shockwave is going to come out, and the baseball, at some point, is going to outrun... It's going to be transonic in this region. My hypothesis is that the baseball will be subsonic when it passes the mirror and we won't get the supersonic shot today. It might be supersonic, but we won't see it.

So, this thing, the math says we can be rated up to a thousand PSI. We're going to go to 750 PSI. We've got a big thick, real big thick shield over there. Let's go look at it real quick. So here you go: two, one-inch thick sheets of steel. That is a massive target. Let's get a baseball. [exhaling excitedly] It's time. It is time. Okay.

We're about to go through the safety checklist, which is right here. This is what the control panel looks like. We tried to make it as straightforward as possible. We're going to add gas here. We're gonna do the first shot at 750 PSI, which is the highest pressure we've ever pressurized this thing to. If you know anything about pressure vessels, we're going to be behind this steel, right?
(Jeremy) Absolutely!

So, here we go. Ready for loading procedures.

• Ramrod.
• There we go.

Is your heart beating fast?
It is. You're excited too. It doesn't feel right to be this excited about a thing. [tape cutting]
(Jeremy) Confirm all-clear of the trailer.
CLEAR.
(Jeremy) Switch tank to vent ready.

• Oh man. You're ready.
• I'm ready. Okay.
  (Jeremy) Okay. So the tank is capable of holding pressure now. So we're pulling the vacuum now. My heart's not beating quite as fast. Is yours?
  (Jeremy) It's had a chance to calm down.

Okay. Alright. [more heavy breathing] So an absolute vacuum is negative 14.7 PSI. If we can get somewhere below 13, we're good. About to pressurize here, by adding gas. Alright. Tank is pressurizing. Nobody get outside the steel right now. That is a lot of volume. So we're gonna be holding this for quite a while. This is tickling all of the brain parts that need to be tickled.
(Jeremy) Yes.

(Destin) We got baseball. We've got... we've got ideal gas law. We've got aerodynamics. We have mechanics. We have mechanical design. I get to push a button and loud things happen.
(Jeremy) You get to push a button underneath a red cover switch. [laughing]

Alright, here we go. 180 PSI. We're at minus 13.9 on the vacuum. There will be a significant sonic boom.
(Trent) I'm scared. I'm a little, I'm tingly.

We're at... not quite 300 PSI. Dude, we have a really good vacuum right now. 540 PSI [Urgently] We're losing our vacuum. Hey, we're losing our vacuum. Do you want to shoot? Here we go. Get ready? Ready? Three, two, one.

[BARBARIC YAWP]

[ECHOES BLASTING OFF TREES]
(Destin) WHAT ON EARTH. Where did it go?
(Jeremy) That ball disintegrated!
(Destin) No it didn't?
(Jeremy) I think it hit the....
(Destin) It did hit the back.

(Laughing) Get the, get the...
(Jeremy) Hold on, the tank is safe! Tank is safe.

[grown men giggling]
(Jeremy) It shredded it, man! Oh wait, you can see the seams!
(Destin) Fantastic! Okay... So at some point we're going to get that high-speed.

(Destin) Oh man. Okay, cool. Let's go do science. I don't think that one's going to be supersonic.
(Destin narrating) OK, here we go, moment of truth. I got to admit, when I first saw this, it was genuinely hard to believe my eyes.
(Destin) Okay, yeah, so... [screams of disbelief]
(Jeremy) Oh man. Duuuuude. What have we... What have we done? Look at it. It's beautiful.
(Jeremy) Can we just walk over and put a ruler in front of the mirror now?
(Destin) That's supersonic.
(Jeremy) ...and then we'll know how much that transient space is?
(Destin) You can tell it's supersonic by the angle. Like, it has a Mach cone!
(Jeremy) There's another...
(Destin) What is that? Is it closing behind it?
(Jeremy) You've got something funky going on. Wow.
(Destin) I have no idea what we've done. We need to measure. We need to figure out that velocity. So you have something we can calibrate?
(Trent) Yeah, absolutely.
(Destin) Point Zero One Four..... Now this is rough. Okay, that's it. Now... 1,050 miles an hour... 1,050 miles an hour. Where's my phone? Mach 1.38.

Okay. (Laughs) I'm legitimately having problems functioning correctly. It just seems too fast. Like this is just imagery and math. That's all this is. We're going to make sure that we actually did go supersonic because the shockwave was detached from the nose of the baseballs on Schlieren. So we've got a stob here and a stob here. They're 12 feet apart. We've got the camera right there. So as the baseball goes across, not only can we get velocity this time, we've got a really good pixel calibration and we'll be able to get the drag coefficient and the baseball.

530 PSI... about minus four on the vacuum. Okay, here we go. Five, four, three, two, one.

[It kind of sounds like what you'd imagine a dinosaur scream would sound like... but also lasers.]

(Destin voiceover) Okay. The indisputable two-stick method. Velocity is equal to distance divided by time. The time to the first stick is 29 milliseconds. And remember, this is happening fast. We're recording at 28,500 frames per second. The time to the second stick is 36.8 milliseconds. Subtract those two and divide, that gives us 1,538 feet per second, which is basically 1050 miles per hour. Adjust for altitude and temperature, and... Yeah.

Hey, it's supersonic. That was Mach 1.35. I mean, that's just measured straight up with poles. Okay... we have a supersonic baseball cannon. It is verified. Ready? Three, two, one, fire.

[explodey things]
(Destin narrating) We've all heard the expression "knocking the cover off the ball," but the ability of a baseball to be destroyed by literally ripping itself apart with kinetic energy is something I never thought I would see. That's how leather breaks, when it's beyond its tensile strength.

After several shots, we realized the cannon was extremely consistent with its targeting. So I decided to put the high-speed camera in a little bit of danger in hopes of seeing something amazing. We ordered a set of official major league baseballs so we could begin to understand what would happen if an MLB fastball, traveling at over a thousand miles an hour, were to hit something.

Okay, you ready? Three, two, one, fire.

[Piercing blast, this time coming at you]
(Destin) Trigger?
(Jeremy) It didn't go over, but it definitely moved the camera.

(Destin narrating) Even though I thought I knew what this would look like up close, I was totally blown away by what I saw. [slow explosion]

Okay. So I've thought for a year about how I'm going to say this. And I still don't know if I have it right. So I'm just going to tell you everything. And just, I trust that you're going to understand. Here's the deal. A project like this is gigantic, and it's very difficult to get a sponsor to sign up for something like this. There's just too much risk. Right?

However, back in the day, I had a crazy idea, and I was able to convince my wife. The crazy idea is: what if I get a baseball with a Smarter Every Day logo on it, and I mail it to everyone who supports on Patreon? Literally everyone who supports Smarter Every Day on Patreon. And maybe over time, we can get enough support on Patreon to offset something this large. And hopefully we don't have to worry about schedules and... you're smart... You know how the internet works.

But there was a problem. I didn't have that many baseballs, and I didn't have a way of getting that many baseballs. Which is why I reached out to the new minor league baseball team in town, the Rocket City Trash Pandas, which I think we will agree is the best minor league baseball team name in the history of minor league baseball teams.

And I said, "Hey, Trash Pandas. Here's the deal: I would like to do this crazy supersonic baseball cannon. Would you consider helping me get baseballs?" And they said, "Yes! Just tell people about the Trash Pandas. You know, our first season's coming up; we're really excited about it."

Well, they didn't get to play their first season. So the Trash Pandas really need people to know about the Trash Pandas right now; they have great shirts and stuff like that. I'm sure they would love the support. They helped me make these baseballs.

And over several months, like four months, I signed all these baseballs. You understand what I'm trying to do here. I'm trying to break free of a calendar/slash schedule-based model for why and how I can make videos. This is what I want to do. I want to make the most amazing video at any given time that my mind can come up with, free from obligation... and Patreon would help me do that.

If you would please consider signing up for Patreon at patreon.com/smartereveryday, that will enable me to be free... to do whatever my mind wants to do. My goal with Smarter Every Day is to change the world for good. Whether it be making a student curious, you know, making somebody want to excel beyond what they think they can do, or just straight up helping people in ways that they don't see coming. So that's what I like to do with Smarter Every Day.

I can promise you that any support you give to Smarter Every Day will go to good in the world. All that being said, please consider subscribing to Smarter Every Day on Patreon. I would greatly appreciate that.

And I will send you this baseball. If you are a Patron already, I need to know your address because I need to send you your baseball because I have it. I signed it. I just don't have your address in the system. So if you already support Smarter Every Day on Patreon, please do that. Patreon.com/smartereveryday. Big thanks to the Trash Pandas for helping me do this. They're really great people. I want to see them succeed. They're an affiliate of the Angels also.

Yeah, that's it. By the way, we now have a supersonic baseball cannon on Smarter Every Day. We can do whatever we want now.

I thank you for watching this video. I thank you for supporting this goofy little channel that this guy in Alabama has, where he explores math and science and tries to do things that are intelligent, respectful, humble, and fun. That's kinda my goal. Thank you for considering your support on Patreon. Also, thank you for considering subscribing. I'm Destin. I'm grateful to you. You're getting Smarter Every Day, have a good one. Bye.