Physical model, theoretical aspects and applications of the flight of a ball in the atmosphere. Part II: Theoretical aspects in the case of vertical angular frequency and applications (Q3986071)

Part I (see the above review) dealt with the modelling of the flight of a rigid ball in the earth's atmosphere and reduced the problem to a dynamical system defined by six ordinary differential equations. The present paper examines theoretical questions concerning the functional behaviour of the curvature of the orbit and the velocity function taking the angular velocity of the ball parallel to the \(Z\)-axis. Specific results on the qualitative behaviour of the curvature and speed functions and a pseudo-decomposition of the equations of the dynamical system are indicated. The system does not allow explicit analytical solution but a `pure' second order differential equation for the speed is obtained with specified initial conditions. If the ball is no shooting star, the problem can be cast as an integro-differential equation for the speed. The initial value problem has a unique locally analytical solution for time \(t>0\) and the coefficients of the power series are recursively determinable. The speed components \(v_ z(t)\), \(v_ E(t)\) are strictly decaying functions on \([0,\infty)\). Two specific international ball games are numerically discussed regarding how a ball can reach from point \(A\) to point \(B\) and the maximum and minimum possible speeds of service in volleyball.