The 2025 World Snooker Championship recently concluded. First World Champion. However, the first half of the nail biting tournament was a different player. I made world news– Mark Allen from Northern Ireland. Allen compiled a rare perfect break of 147 points, becoming only the 11th player to do so during the World Championship match, earning a bonus of around $53,000 (£40,000). Perfect break! 147 points! If you actually want to know that means– and/or the snooker turns out to be a great demonstration of Newtonian physics.
How Snooker Works…
First, the basics. If you’re familiar with Snooker, you can probably skip this section, but if not, there’s a reason why 147 is the magic number.
Game of snooker (called frames) start with 21 balls on the table and do not include white cue balls. These are called object balls and contain 15 red balls and one of each of the following colors: yellow, green, brown, blue, pink and black.
Like a pool, the goal of the game is to use cue balls to push the object ball into six pockets lined up at the table’s boundary. This is called the ball “potting” and if the player does this well, he can take another shot. Otherwise, the other players will step up. The game continues until all the balls are potted.
Here are two important things to note: The first is that the balls on the snooker are worth the points and need to be potted in ascending order. First, 15 red (equivalent to 1 point each), then yellow (two values), green (3), brown (4), blue (5), pink (6), and finally black (7). Second, after each red ball has been potted, the player who potted it will have the opportunity to pot the coloured balls. If they are successful, the colored ball value is added to the score and the ball is returned to its starting position. Red is away from the table.
A skilled player can take long strings of consecutive pots. Such streaks are called breaks. And, as keen readers point out, there is a maximum score from one break. 15 red balls each (1 point each), each black ball (equivalent to 7 points each), then colored in order. This gives you a maximum of 147: (15 x 1) + (15 x 7)) + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7.
…and why is it really, really difficult?
It’s difficult to exaggerate how difficult it is to compile a 147 break. First of all, there is the simple fact that you need to pot 36 balls in a row without going missing. As anyone who has spent time playing the pool proves, such a streak is not a mean feat in itself.
However, the average bar room pool shark can be amazed at the size of the snooker table. Huge. a Regulation Snooker Table It’s 12 feet long and 6 feet wide, and is basically the same size as you get it 4 average bar size pool tables Place them in two configurations. To be fair, professional pool tables are big—9 feet x 4.5 feet – But it still has significantly less area than the snooker table.
Furthermore, despite the fact that the snooker table is much larger than the pool table, the pockets are smallAnd they too Opens at a narrower angle Rather than being on the pool table. This makes snookers more tolerant than pools. If the ball isn’t moving straight into the pocket, it could catch a corner and bounce back again.
All these factors make some shots difficult enough. By yourself I set the table down and set the black bowl into a pot every time I make the red into a pot.
Controlling the cue ball… in physics!
If snooker is really, really difficult, how do players take 147 breaks on Earth? The majority of the answer is…physics!
Astrophysicists and snooker fanatics Simon Goodwinfrom the University of Sheffield in the UK Popular science It’s basically, Snooker is a very simple game.
“You have a cue ball. The main goal is to get an object ball in your pocket. And when you don’t play as well as I do, he usually says, “Yes! I got it!” However, the key to making a pot after the pot is to manipulate the cue ball and set it up for the next shot. “You have a very specific order where you have to pot the balls. You have to make it red and you have to get the color. And cue ball control is absolutely important.”
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Control the angle
Cue ball control starts with understanding what happens when two balls collide. Consider the simplest case: the cue ball moves in a straight line and hits the object ball completely square. The cue ball has a constant momentum, which is calculated as its mass twice its speed. This is because the ball is moving in a straight line Linear momentum.
Goodwin says this simple case is very easy to model the model. “The cue ball comes in. It’s hitting the object ball. If it’s a head-on collision, it’s just a straight line and passing all the momentum. [The incoming] The ball stops and the other just keeps going. So it’s very, very easy. ”
In other words, all cue ball momentum is transferred to the object ball. this is The momentum is a It’s saved amount. Because all other factors are equal, the amount of momentum carried into the collision is the same as the amount carried.
However, it is very rare for cue balls, object balls and pockets to perfectly align, so most snooker shots involve cue balls hitting the object ball at an angle. In that case, the momentum is still preserved, but it is now divided between the cue ball and the object ball, and the sharper the angle at which the cue ball hits the object ball, the more momentum is retained.
One constant is that the ball is a ball Fly to a right angle. Well, most of it. “If this is a classic, ideal physics problem,” Goodwin says. [diverge] Perfect right angle. ”
But of course, snookers are not a classic idealized physics problem. The cue ball loses energy to friction as it moves, and collisions between the two balls are completely inflexible. The contact between the two balls also produces friction and loss of kinetic energy.
But to solve what to do if the cue ball affects the object ball, you can do much worse than starting with the knowledge that it takes apart at a 90° angle and start with that momentum being saved between them.
Master Spin
Linear momentum is only half the story, and it’s definitely not that interesting. Looking at the highlights of the snooker, you can see that the best players can do all sorts of insane things with cue balls. Stop at dime, Turn at an obviously impossible angleor After impact, it shakes violently. Goodwin says that even he has noticed that he sometimes shook his head in disbelief. “There’s something you see, and you go, ‘It breaks the laws of physics!”
All this magic depends on another form of momentum. The spin of the ball, or more formal Angular momentum.
“Look at something really, really, really, really good [players]Goodwin says. “They can somehow get [cue ball] When someone is having a really nice break, it looks very natural. And the way you control the cue ball is to spin it. ”
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The spin is given to the cue ball by hitting it with a cue somewhere else, completely completely somewhere else in the center. Hitting the ball above the center point gives you topspin, while hitting below the center point gives you backspin. Both of these rotate the ball about an axis perpendicular to the direction of movement. The Topspin rotates the ball in the same direction as it is running, but the Backspin is the opposite. On the other hand, hitting the cue ball to the left or right will rotate it around an axis perpendicular to the plane of the table.
And that’s not all. As Goodwin points out, “can be combined [multiple forms of spin] Then, spin the ball in a complicated way. ”
So, what happens when a spinning cue ball hits an object ball? Angular momentum is also a conserved amountthat is, the amount of spin given to the cue ball is distributed between the cue ball and the object ball in a collision. The cue ball carrying the topspin continues after the collision, but sufficient backspin screws the cue ball backwards and moves in the opposite direction from the object ball. Side spins change the orientation of both the cue ball and the object ball.
Understanding the table
So far, we have looked at ideal models of how snooker balls interact, but the actual imperfections of the game itself are important when considering spin. In particular, the interaction between the cue ball and the table is an important consideration.
“The ball can gain or lose spin as it moves across the fabric,” explains Goodwin. The degree to which the ball holds the table depends a bit on its speed. The faster the ball moves, the more it slides down the table rather than rolling. This explains how magical shots under the snooker icon are possible. At first, the cue ball is too fast to grab the table. When the speed drops, the extreme spin white is held and the ball just stops.
Credit: Andrew Harrison via YouTube.
All individual snooker tables are also different, providing greater friction than the other tables. “It’s pretty often,” Goodwin says. [of a match] It’s a little crude. parable [a frame] Clearly they’ll win, and the other players will play a little while despite having no chance to win just to get the feel of the table. ”
Furthermore, he said, “There’s directionality because the cloth has naps. So, in reality, the balls under and above the table are a little different. And if you’re not that right, you can’t see how the table running hits or surpasses hit shots.”
There is one final side of the table to describe: cushion. Again, as a rule, the way the ball interacts with the cushion is very simple. This time, it is useful to borrow the concept from the optics. Incidence and angle of reflection. “In an ideal situation, [the ball] It just reflects,” Goodwin says.
Basically, when you draw a line perpendicular to the cushion at the point where the ball comes into contact, the angle of the ball’s trajectory will be the same (reflection angle) that the ball’s path will be the same angle (reflection angle) that will bounce back.
However, adding a little spin to the ball will start a very different behavior. Learn how the ball moves straight across the table.
Credit: Sports Life via YouTube.
Forget everything
Do professional snooker players think about the angle of reflection and the difference between linear and angular momentum? “Of course it’s not,” laughs Goodwin. “They just have an instinctive understanding that if I do this, this will happen.”
This understanding is built over lifelong practice. According to Goodwin, experts spend “thousands of hours at the practice table.”
For those of us who can’t do that, understanding can be surprisingly helpful why The ball behaves their way. A theoretical understanding of the physics of cue ball object ball interactions can take you so far, but may just provide an edge when playing the pool at a local bar.
This story is part of popular science Please listen to any serieswe answer your most strange and awakened questions from normal to off-wall. Do you always have something you want to know? Ask us.
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