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Badminton play is characterized by the unusual flight dynamics of the shuttlecock. Although world-class players can launch the projectile almost 140 m/s off the racket (the fastest tennis serves are only about 70 m/s), since aerodynamic drag is the dominant force it not only allows the shuttlecock to travel at manageable speeds by the time it crosses the court, but it permits an analytic solution for the flight path. A very approachable open-access paper by Cohen et al. in the New Journal of Physics covers everything from the history of the game to the effects on the gameplay from subtle differences in shuttlecock design.
Abstract:
The conical shape of a shuttlecock allows it to flip on impact. As a light and extended particle, it flies with a pure drag trajectory. We first study the flip phenomenon and the dynamics of the flight and then discuss the implications on the game. Lastly, a possible classification of different shots is proposed.
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by hubie on Tuesday June 23 2015, @02:47PM
Well, we can't have all our articles be about political issues. :) I thought people would find the topic interesting, the article is open-access, and it is instructive even if you can't follow the math, but here anyone who took first-year physics could get into the details if they were interested. If the complexity of the subject matter permits, I much prefer to read the paper than to read someone else's summary of it on some blog.
Goosefeathers seem to be the feather of choice. However, it would surprise me if they were killing geese for the feathers. I would wager that the availability of the feathers is a by-product of the goose livestock industry.
This is the tradeoff for open-access journals, or for journals that lets an author choose an open-access license. They charge higher for open-access articles to keep their price per article such that their operating costs are covered by this and the money from subscriptions.
(Score: 1) by islisis on Tuesday June 23 2015, @03:39PM
Having the source paper was definitely a boon. In this case, I just thought the math might be more familiar than the sport itself.
A bit disappointing that the paper didn't really try to apply its findings further to challenge any traditional aspects of the game, but it was thorough stuff.
The feathers won't be a by-product, as depending on the region sourced the meat isn't be all that popular; they are the product itself. In this case it is no different from industries like sleeping bags manufacturing, though of course in those ares too advancements continue to replace feathers with synthetics. I simply felt a good aerodynamics study combined with lower production tolerances could actually go some way here to surpass the traditional methods.
Paid-for open-access presents an interesting start for a change in online publishing I feel and I hope the operating costs also become more trasparent and flexible in the future.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @06:27PM
I'm a farmer. I have geese.
They live for a long time. Many, many years.
Each year, they moult naturally. I could fill you a bucket with feathers, even of pretty good quality, every year. That's enough for a bunch of shuttlecocks.
I don't know where you come up with this ignorant nonsense about killing the birds. But please, you're wrong, stop spreading lies.
Thank you.
(Score: 1) by islisis on Tuesday June 23 2015, @08:24PM
Thank you for your experience, I have no such agenda of spreading any lies or evidence myself but wanted to raise the concerns freely presented elsewhere:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_feather#Animal_cruelty [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @08:43PM
You'd better start arresting birds, then. They pluck themselves to line their nests.
Unfortunately, you can't really have it all ways at once. From dead birds? Somehow the birds are ending up dead and I'll bet it wasn't natural causes. From live birds? Incompetent idiots might injure birds.
Wait, synthetics are cruelty-free! Except for the unsustainable sources of the synthetics, the energy intensive sources of synthetics, and environmental costs of the source industries ...
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch, here. If you want thermal insulation, down is still about as good as it gets and unless you're pro-petrochemicals or not worried about energy intensive industries, pretty much the only game in town. Everything else comes down to how the birds are treated.
It would make more sense, all things considered, to improve plucking processes. But I guess that sounds too much like an endorsement of sadism to people who don't really understand what's going on.
(Score: 1) by islisis on Tuesday June 23 2015, @08:55PM
If the statement is misleading I should say it motivates the economic practice. The problem is born out of scale.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @09:17PM
It's irrelevant anyway because badminton shuttlecocks don't use down. And if you're killing geese to get feathers, you are definitely a moron - if you're killing geese for the meat and collecting feathers in the process, well, then the feathers are a by-product and there's no real problem there.
Down can be (if you're not an incompetent fool who has no business around anything more complex than a chew toy) harvested from live birds without much drama, and there's no problem with that because the birds' biology handles it as a normal process, with a lower net environmental cost than pretty much anything petrochemically based.
Conflating the construction of down comforters with the construction of shuttlecocks in this sense only confuses the issue.
Of course, there's always plan B: ban down collection and petrochemical extraction. Might make someone happy (though I have no idea who, since most environmentalists I've met love them some soft, fluffy, warm coats) but it still won't prevent shuttlecocks from being constructed.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Wednesday June 24 2015, @02:23AM
Interesting link,
The precise percentage of down harvested in this manner is uncertain; while some references report that it is only a small fraction of the total (less than 1% in 2011) a 2009 Swedish documentary reported that it might be as much as 50–80%.
So the amount of down that is harvested in a cruel way is somewhere between 1% and 80%. So... uh... that sort of needs to be narrowed down before we can label it a major systemic problem or a problem with isolated outliers.