Newton's Laws of Motion in Volleyball

Author's note: During my one on one meeting with Mr. Roehl, I was scheduled to have a writing evaluation the next week. I decided I wanted to write something that could be put on my home page, considering I haven't posted recently. I didn't know what to write about though, so Mr. Roehl suggested that I did a piece on how Newton's Laws of Motions affected setting in volleyball. After doing some research, (and receiving help from my dad) I definitely understood the concept much better. In this piece, I will try to use better transitions, and focus more on my conclusion.

Newton's Laws of Motion affect anything and everything that has mass. Whether the object you are dealing with is 100 pounds, or two ounces, all three of Newton's Laws will apply. The first law states that an object in motion will stay in motion and an object at rest will stay at rest until an unbalanced force acts upon it. This one is fairly self-explanatory. The second law shows the relationship between forces, mass and acceleration. In that law, part of the statement shows that force is equal to mass multiplied by acceleration. Finishing off the group of Newton's Laws is the third law which implies that for every action there is an equal reaction.

I tried to apply all three of these laws to setting a volleyball. With the first law, setting involves a volleyball in motion. The ball gets to it's highest peak in it's movement, then gravity overpowers the upward momentum of the ball and causes the ball to come back down. The next force acting on the volleyball would be me. I am stopping the ball from moving one way, then sending it across the court in another direction.

When I am pushing the volleyball across the court, I am applying a force to the ball. Force is the mass of the volleyball, multiplied by the acceleration I have placed on it. Since the mass of the volleyball isn't that much, the strength and speed of which I set it will be a large part of how much force is on the ball.

When the force of the volleyball is being applied by gravity, the interaction between the ball and my hands can be very immense or miniscule. The first thing I do when I set is I prevent the ball from going downward, and forcing it to go up instead. That is the action that I take against the ball. Because every action has an equal reaction, my pushing upward on the ball is actually causing me to be shoved downward. Therefore, my action against the volleyball has a reaction to my body. If I am pushing out, my body, as a reaction, will be pushed in. This causes my entire body, as well as the floor, to absorb the force the ball is placing on me.

Now imagine how many tasks everyday involve the three laws that Newton put together. Most likely every single second of your day is proving that every time you move, there's a reaction to that movement. Your television remote is going to have much more force flying across the room than a piece of paper if the same amount of acceleration is placed on both objects. The pencil sitting on your desk won't move if an unbalanced force doesn't apply to it, because it won't just get up and walk away.