The Math in the Game of Volleyball

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Math in Volleyball
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Math in Volleyball
A good service in volleyball is important to a winning strategy. Either an effective serve will not be returned, leading to a point, or it will be returned with minimal strength, providing the serving team with the advantage. One aim of a good serve is to provide the receivers with little time as possible to react. Forces and angles are the two main factors at play when relating volleyball with math (Papageōrgiou & Spitzley, 2003). In short, in order to relate volleyball with math, the force needed to make the ball move a certain height or distance, the angle required to make the ball over the net, and the arrangement of players, such that less players cover more ground need to be well illustrated. This paper connects the concept of mathematics to volleyball, explaining various models of a served volleyball in details.
To explain these models, the forces as well as velocities acting on the ball are described mathematically. The three most important forces considered here include the force due to gravity, force from the spin, and the force due to air resistance.
Dimensions, Parameters, and Notations
Illustrating the arrangement of players mathematically requires that one understand the standard dimensions of a volleyball court. According to Lithio and Webb (2006), a standard volleyball court resembles a rectangle, which is 59 ft long by 29 ft, 6 in. wide. A net, centrally placed, separates the court into two squares. Stretching from the end of every side of the volleyball court is an area from which the ball is served, at least 6 ft wide. A player can stand in any region of this area to serve (consider figure 1) (Lithio & Webb, 2006).

The radius, r, of volleyball is slight...

... middle of paper ...

...spinning the ball. Therefore, the serve that has the minimum time in air is struck when the volleyball is hit with topspin towards the end line. In addition, if the server likes to serve cross-court, even though this does not affect the overall time, it can be utilized to serve the ball harder and perhaps catch off-guard the opponent players, resulting to a pass.

References
Barrow, J. (n.d.). Maths in a minute: Volleyball | Maths and Sport. Sport.maths.org. Retrieved 14 May 2014, from http://sport.maths.org/content/maths-minute-volleyball
Kenny, B., & Gregory, C. (2006). Volleyball (1st ed.). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
Lithio, D., & Webb, E. (2006). Optimizing a volleyball serve. Rose-Hulman Institute Of Technology Undergraduate Math Journal.
Papageōrgiou, A., & Spitzley, W. (2003). Handbook for competitive volleyball (1st ed.). Oxford: Meyer & Meyer Sport.

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