It's not realistic to swing the bat at a 45 degree angle. It's very hard to hit a moving target that way. So you pick a lower angle such as 30 degrees that still gives you a good chance of making contact with the ball. And I'm still a question what numbers they're using in baseball. But everything I told you works regardless of how they measure it.
What is exit velocity? On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly explore parabolas, measuring the speed of an object using the Doppler effect, and other physics in baseball.
NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can listen to this entire episode commercial-free.
Photo Credit: Andrew nyr, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.