The Physics of Kicking a Soccer Ball Serious （踢足球的物理学严重）.pdf

The Physics of Kicking a Soccer Ball Shael Brown Grade 8 Table of Contents Introduction 1 What actually happens when you kick a soccer ball?2 Who kicks harder – shorter or taller people? 4 How much force, in weight, would a professional soccer player experience on their foot in a kick?5 Does a big follow-through help your kick? 6 How do soccer players curl a soccer ball?7 Acknowledgements and References 8 Introduction Soccer is the most popular sport in the world. Soccer players all work very hard to keep in shape, and to improve their kick. Most of them don’t know that there is a scientifically correct way of going about doing this. I researched the physics of soccer and found some very interesting facts that all soccer players would do well to learn. The topics that I looked into are: What actually happens when you kick a soccer ball? Who kicks harder – shorter or taller people? Does a big follow through help your kick? How much force, in weight, would a professional soccer player experience on their foot in a kick? How do soccer players curl a soccer ball? I chose this project because soccer is my passion and foremost hobby. I also chose it because I find it very interesting how simple physics can drastically improve my kick. 1 What actually happens when you kick a soccer ball? When you kick a soccer ball, multiple things happen. First of all, your leg is putting kinetic (or “movement”) energy into the ball. The formula for this is: 1 KE = mv2 2 Here the kinetic energy equals one half of the mass of your leg multi- plied by the velocity of your l