When a tennis player serves a tennis ball, the serve can reach speeds over 124 mph (200 km/h). But what’s happening to the ball when it gets hit? This 142 mph (228.5 km/h) serve in slow motion (6,000fps) shows us.
Tennis balls are hollow, pressurized, and made of rubber that’s covered in “optic yellow” felt. It looks amazing when their hollow rubber cores compress like this, but tennis balls are tough to dispose of. From Wikipedia:
Each year approximately 300 million balls are produced, which contributes roughly 20,000 tonnes (22,000 tons) of waste in the form of rubber that is not easily biodegradable. Historically, tennis ball recycling has not existed. Balls from The Championships, Wimbledon are now recycled to provide field homes for the nationally threatened Eurasian harvest mouse. Tennis balls can also be rejuvenated or recycled using commercial services…
Watch more really incredible videos about balls, including The Stacked Ball Drop, ball pit balls onto an escalator, Liquid Nitrogen + 1500 Ping Pong Balls, and turning scraps into soccer balls for village children.
via Kottke.
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