What Is a Ping-Pong Ball Made of?

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Judy Hoarfrost from Paddle Palace Table Tennis Company and our topic is what is a table tennis ball made of? Now table tennis is the second most popular participation sport in the world and it's the fastest racket sport in the world. A top quality ball has a perfect bounce, it is perfectly consistent, it is perfectly round and it enables a very action packed spin oriented game of table tennis but what magic material is responsible for all this? Well you've come to the right place. Paddle Palace imports container loads of balls from China and Japan so we went to our friends from Nittaku 3-Star Premium Ball which is the official ball for USA table tennis, for Canada table tennis and it's been used in 13 of the world championships since 1971 and we asked them what is the table tennis ball made of? Well the answer is it's made of celluloid from the nitration of cellulose from cotton. So there you go. The official regulations of table tennis say that the ball must be made of celluloid or a similar plasticide substance. It must be 40 millimeters in diameter, it must weight 2.7 grams, it must be white or orange and matte. The celluloid ball was invented in 1900 and that's when table tennis really took off and in those days lots of things were made out of celluloid. There was the movie film, there were billiard balls, there were fabric and corsets all made from celluloid. Nowadays ping pong balls are pretty much the last remaining object maybe there are some guitar picks made with celluloid but that's it. I often get asked what gas is inside of a Ping Pong ball? If you have a cracked ball and you smell it it does smell like it has a gas but the truth is inside of a Ping Pong ball ta da is nothing. Nada, air, there is no bas inside of a Ping Pong ball. Anyway if you are interested in learning more about table tennis or learning more about how table tennis balls are made we have a good story about how they're made with pictures at paddlepalace.com but I invite you to learn more about the sport and join the fun."