Why do curling stones curl? That is a question physicists are often asked, yet no answer has been established. Stones rotating clockwise curl right, contrary to our naive expectations. After a century of debate between contradicting hypotheses, this paper provides the answer based on experimental evidence. A digital image analysis technique was used to perform precision kinematic measurements of a curling stone's motion to identify the curling mechanism. We observed a significant left-right asymmetric friction due to velocity dependence on the friction constant. Combined with the discrete point-like nature of the friction between ice and stone, swinging around slow-side friction points has been concluded as the dominant origin of the curling. Many new angular momentum transfer phenomena have been found, supporting this conclusion.
%0 Journal Article
%1 murata2022study
%A Murata, Jiro
%D 2022
%K Curling Curlingstein Physik
%R https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2203.00347
%T Study of curling mechanism by precision kinematic measurements of curling stone’s motion
%X Why do curling stones curl? That is a question physicists are often asked, yet no answer has been established. Stones rotating clockwise curl right, contrary to our naive expectations. After a century of debate between contradicting hypotheses, this paper provides the answer based on experimental evidence. A digital image analysis technique was used to perform precision kinematic measurements of a curling stone's motion to identify the curling mechanism. We observed a significant left-right asymmetric friction due to velocity dependence on the friction constant. Combined with the discrete point-like nature of the friction between ice and stone, swinging around slow-side friction points has been concluded as the dominant origin of the curling. Many new angular momentum transfer phenomena have been found, supporting this conclusion.
@article{murata2022study,
abstract = {Why do curling stones curl? That is a question physicists are often asked, yet no answer has been established. Stones rotating clockwise curl right, contrary to our naive expectations. After a century of debate between contradicting hypotheses, this paper provides the answer based on experimental evidence. A digital image analysis technique was used to perform precision kinematic measurements of a curling stone's motion to identify the curling mechanism. We observed a significant left-right asymmetric friction due to velocity dependence on the friction constant. Combined with the discrete point-like nature of the friction between ice and stone, swinging around slow-side friction points has been concluded as the dominant origin of the curling. Many new angular momentum transfer phenomena have been found, supporting this conclusion.},
added-at = {2022-07-22T13:24:32.000+0200},
author = {Murata, Jiro},
biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2d21773fd73fe20c0ef22e7d7783f1449/cckonstanz},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2203.00347},
interhash = {ac89c9d6adf71e79ad2b523fdd44f043},
intrahash = {d21773fd73fe20c0ef22e7d7783f1449},
keywords = {Curling Curlingstein Physik},
timestamp = {2022-08-06T16:53:52.000+0200},
title = {Study of curling mechanism by precision kinematic measurements of curling stone’s motion},
year = 2022
}