06-04-2019, 01:33 PM
(06-04-2019, 01:07 PM)oldalum Wrote: is there an accepted scientific explanation for why a baseball (or golf ball) flies further in humid air than dry air at the same temperature? Intuitively I would have thought the reverse (I obviously have bad intuition.) just curious, thanks.I found this about golf balls and humid air:
Humidity has a significant effect on golf ball distance, too. The higher the humidity, the longer the ball flies. You can feel humid air more, but water weighs less than the nitrogen and oxygen molecules that make up dry air. So, you're hitting into thinner air, which means the ball goes farther as though a golfer were playing at a higher altitude. Ultimately, however, going from basically no humidity to full humidity has the effect of a single yard.
From a chemical standpoint, N2 and O2 have atomic weights of 28 amu and 32 amu, respectively, whereas H2O weighs in at 18 amu. This renders humid air actually lighter, even though it feels heavier. But as is noted in the paragraph above, the effect is not significant.