{"id":2061,"date":"2026-06-13T11:18:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T11:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=2061"},"modified":"2026-06-13T11:18:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T11:18:29","slug":"how-can-soccer-players-bend-their-shots-in-midair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=2061","title":{"rendered":"How Can Soccer Players Bend Their Shots in Midair?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paywall\">We need one more thing\u2014how about Newton&#8217;s <em>second<\/em> law? This says the acceleration depends on the net force (<strong>F<sub>net<\/sub><\/strong>) and the mass (<strong>m<\/strong>) of an object. It\u2019s usually written as <strong>F<sub>net<\/sub> = m \u00d7 a<\/strong>, but we can rearrange it like this: <strong>a = F<sub>net<\/sub>\/m<\/strong>. Combining this with our gravitational force, we get something pretty interesting:<\/p>\n<figure class=\"AssetEmbedWrapper-iJvQnD cOWUYC asset-embed\">\n<div class=\"AssetEmbedAssetContainer-fnduJP iaVSwI asset-embed__asset-container\"><span class=\"SpanWrapper-kFnjvc eKnjjD responsive-asset AssetEmbedResponsiveAsset-gaAbQ hXaxHA asset-embed__responsive-asset\"><picture class=\"ResponsiveImagePicture-jKunQM gjCCFj AssetEmbedResponsiveAsset-gaAbQ hXaxHA asset-embed__responsive-asset responsive-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Image may contain Text Number and Symbol\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"ResponsiveImageContainer-dkeESL cQPiWi responsive-image__image\" srcset=\"https:\/\/media.wired.com\/photos\/6a287885bc576fffc167a2b4\/master\/w_120,c_limit\/gravaccel.png 120w, https:\/\/media.wired.com\/photos\/6a287885bc576fffc167a2b4\/master\/w_240,c_limit\/gravaccel.png 240w, https:\/\/media.wired.com\/photos\/6a287885bc576fffc167a2b4\/master\/w_320,c_limit\/gravaccel.png 320w, https:\/\/media.wired.com\/photos\/6a287885bc576fffc167a2b4\/master\/w_640,c_limit\/gravaccel.png 640w, https:\/\/media.wired.com\/photos\/6a287885bc576fffc167a2b4\/master\/w_960,c_limit\/gravaccel.png 960w, https:\/\/media.wired.com\/photos\/6a287885bc576fffc167a2b4\/master\/w_1280,c_limit\/gravaccel.png 1280w, https:\/\/media.wired.com\/photos\/6a287885bc576fffc167a2b4\/master\/w_1600,c_limit\/gravaccel.png 1600w\" sizes=\"100vw\" src=\"https:\/\/media.wired.com\/photos\/6a287885bc576fffc167a2b4\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/gravaccel.png\"\/><\/picture><\/span><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"BaseText-fEwdHD CaptionCredit-cUgOGk iQbGEh hRFzlA caption__credit\">Courtesy of Rhett Allain<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Since both gravity and acceleration depend on the mass of the ball, the mass cancels. We find that any object on Earth has a downward acceleration of 9.8 meters per second per second (m\/s<sup>2<\/sup>). This means that if you drop a bowling ball and a marble at the same time, they\u2019ll hit the ground at the same time\u2014even though the gravitational force on the bowling ball is thousands of times higher. Weird, right?<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Anyway, now, in the presence of gravity, if you kicked a ball at an upward angle, it\u2019s vertical velocity would slow, halt, and reverse, with the speed increasing as it falls. In other words, it starts accelerating in the downward direction as soon as it\u2019s kicked, even while it\u2019s moving upward.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">What about the horizontal motion? Ah, since there\u2019s no horizontal force after the initial kick, the ball continues traveling forward at the same speed, just like in space. People tend to think a ball falls because its forward motion slows, but actually it\u2019s the opposite. Without air drag it doesn\u2019t slow down at all. It only stops because the ground gets in the way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">So what we get for a trajectory is that familiar upside-down parabola, often called a ballistic trajectory because it\u2019s the path of any unpowered projectile, like a cannon ball, a bullet, or a basketball. Any flying object for which gravity is the only (significant) force acting on it will move this way.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"paywall\">Soccer With Air<\/h2>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Happily, the Earth does have air. But it drastically changes the game. Now there <em>is<\/em> a continuous force acting horizontally, which we call air resistance, or drag, and it pushes in the direction opposite to the ball\u2019s motion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Think of air molecules as a bunch of tiny ping-pong balls. As a soccer ball moves through the air it collides with gazillions of these little air balls, and each collision exerts a backward-pushing force; all combined, this creates the total air-resistance force. The bigger the object, the more collisions it has to fight through.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/how-can-soccer-players-bend-their-shots-in-midair\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We need one more thing\u2014how about Newton&#8217;s second law? This says the acceleration depends on the net force (Fnet) and the mass (m) of an object. It\u2019s usually written as Fnet = m \u00d7 a, but we can rearrange it like this: a = Fnet\/m. Combining this with our gravitational force, we get something pretty [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[728,263,489,357,490],"class_list":["post-2061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-gadgets","tag-forces","tag-physics","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-world-cup-2026"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How Can Soccer Players Bend Their Shots in Midair? - Silvybrand Lifestyle Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As World Cup action kicks off, we look at the physics of the beautiful game.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=2061\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Can Soccer Players Bend Their Shots in Midair? 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