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Bowling ball talk

- At egscomics

"Yellow ones are fastest, but don't hit as hard as red. If you want a trick shot, you'll definitely want blue. Purple will match your mood, but that can backfire. As for green..."

Commentary

This wasn't some random bit of convenient trivia I just happened to know.

I wanted to have some sort of conversation involving bowling balls that resulted in a show of strength by Lucy, and was still figuring that out when I was looking up weights for bowling balls. That was when I stumbled onto the discussion of "which ball weight is the best", some physics equations, and anecdotes supporting the conclusion.

And because it was a debate in which ball weights were compared, I suddenly had the perfect excuse for Lucy to hold two of the heavier bowling balls at the same time.

So, shocking fun fact, learning about stuff can help you write about about stuff! Who knew?

I imagine there's still debate about fourteen Vs fifteen / sixteen pound bowling balls, and maybe even light Vs heavy in general, but what's important for this comic is simply that Lucy has accepted the "fourteen pounds is best" argument.

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Comments

John Trauger

heavier balls hit with the same kinetic energy (that's why they move slower) but going slower transfer less to the pins.

Some Ed

I'm pretty sure it's still about relative strength. I think the real answer is that you want a ball that is actually comfortably heavy for you. If you go over that weight, you're not going to move it as fast so it won't help you as much as you might think. The debate exists because so few people can actually put themselves in another person's perspective. Additionally, what exactly does "comfortably heavy" mean? I think the best version of this advice I've heard was something like, "Check out the balls, identify the heaviest ball that you feel you could use. Great, now get one that's between about 50% and 75% of its weight."