Nolan Ryan logged the fastest fastball pitch in baseball, with a top speed of just over a 100 miles an hour according to the Guinness Book of Records. An average major league fastball pokes along at a measly 90 miles an hour. Here's how to calculate the percent difference of kinetic energy between Nolan Ryan's record-setting fastball and the average toss from your standard issue belly-itcher.
Convert the miles per hour velocity of both pitches to meters per second (see the metric conversion calculator in Resources below). Oh, this will be fun. For the Ryan Express, you get 45 meters per second. The 90 mile an hour pitch converts to 40 meters per second.
2
Convert the mass of a standard major league baseball from ounces to kilograms. A standard major league baseball must mass between 5 and 5 1/4 oz. Using 5 oz. as our standard weight, you find that a standard major league baseball masses about 0.14 kg.
3
Multiply the velocity of each pitch by itself. For Nolan Ryan, you get 2,025 meters squared per second squared. For the average fastball, you get 1,600 meters squared per second squared.
4
Multiply the squared velocities of each pitch by the mass of the baseball. For Nolan Ryan's record-holding pitch, you should get 283.5 kilogram meters squared per second squared. An average major league fastball will rack up 224 kilogram meters squared per second squared. Divide both results by 2 to find the kinetic energy in joules for each pitch. For Nolan Ryan's pitch, you should get 141.75 joules. For an average major league fastball, you should get 112.5 joules.
5
Subtract the average fastball kinetic energy from the Ryan Express kinetic energy. You should get 29.25 joules.
6
Divide the difference in kinetic energy between the two pitches by the average major league fastball total kinetic energy. You should get 0.26. Multiply this result by 100 to get the percentage difference of kinetic energy between a Nolan Ryan fastball and an average major league pitch. The answer is 26 percent.
Tips & Warnings
Sure, you could take all of the figures listed in this example and carry them out to the umpteenth decimal. Do you really have that kind of time on your hands? This method gives you a quick-and-dirty figure for calculating the percentage of kinetic energy, good enough for a bar bet.
