The Straight Dope 10/31/2003

The Straight Dope -- By Cecil Adams
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THE STRAIGHT DOPE 10/31/2003

Dear Cecil:

While watching this year's baseball playoffs, I remembered
something someone told me a while ago. Curveballs don't
really curve. It is an optical illusion. Is this really
the case? Also, how many different ways can a pitcher
really throw the ball? --Mark J. Costello, via the Internet

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Cecil replies:
Your question comes at a timely moment. I, too, watched
the playoffs. My team did not win. My backup didn't win.
However, I will have no talk of goats, bambinos, or any
other such feeble excuse. We need to get back to basics.
Lesson Number One: How to Pitch.

The debate over whether a curveball actually curves began
maybe 20 minutes after the pitch was perfected by William
"Candy" Cummings in 1867. (I follow the account given by
LeRoy Alaways in his 1998 doctoral dissertation for the
University of California, Davis, "Aerodynamics of the
Curve-Ball: An Investigation of the Effects of Angular
Velocity on Baseball Trajectories.") The matter wasn't 
resolved quickly. 

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/031031.html

STAFF REPORT

Dear Straight Dope:

Isn't it dangerous to look into an operating microwave
oven? The screen across the door just doesn't seem
capable of protecting us. Still, I believe the government
safety experts would have thought of this and wouldn't
allow dangerous ovens on the market. How are the safety
margins measured and how do you know when an oven "goes
bad"? --Ernst Gebhardt

SDSTAFF Q.E.D. replies:

If you ask me, one of the cleverest parts of a microwave
oven is the door. It lets you see into the oven to make
sure your potato isn't about to explode, yet keeps your
face from being cooked off by microwaves in the process.

It accomplishes this remarkable feat with a metal mesh--
basically a sheet of metal with a regular pattern of
small holes drilled or punched in it. This, along with
the metal material of the oven cavity itself, forms a
sort of reverse Faraday cage. 

For more, see: 
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mmicromesh.html

STRAIGHT DOPE CLASSIC - 03/01/1974

Dear Cecil: 

A friend of mine said the other day he was going to
"boogie on the slopes." I must have looked a little 
puzzled, because he amplified by saying, "You know,
to make some moves in the snow." That set me to
wondering about the origins of the word "boogie," and
to thinking that it might be connected with the French
word bougir, to move, or bougie, a movement. Am I
right, and if not, what is the origin of boogie?
--Helen T., Los Angeles

Dear Helen:

I think the French verb you mean is bouger, but in any case
there's no connection. Ultimately, "boogie" seems to come,
via a circuitous route, from the Latin Bulgarus, an 
inhabitant of Bulgaria. The Old French term boulgre was
used to refer to a member of a sect of 11th-century
Bulgarian heretics, and "bougre" first appears in the
English writing in 1340 as a synonym for "heretic." By the
16th century, "bougre" grew into. . .
 
For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_288.html
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