Throw angle is a bunch of bull too

pnachtwey wrote: I can see that few made an effort to understand how throw can be tested by dropping a ball without spin straight down on a horizontal paddle that is moving perpendicular the dropped ball. Doesn't any body see that the paddle motion at right angle to the balls path spins the ball and the same force cause the ball to bounce back at an angle isn't perpendicular to the paddle's blade? No one addressed the speed and control ratings either. I bet you believe in the tooth fairy too. Some astute person did post something about trust and that was the most intelligent response so far. Trust no one about anything and that is exactly what I am doing. I want proof, I want numbers. Read the part about throw. http://www.megaspin.net/articles/view.asp?id=304 Why would a paddle put a ball into a net? What force would do this while looping?

pnachtwey wrote: I am a relative TT rookie but I am an experience engineer and I think the talk about throw angle is BS. I would like to see some evidence that an engineer would believe that one rubber or blade throws higher or lower than another. I think it should be obvious that a ball hits a paddle without spin and perpendicular to the paddle will bounce off perpendicular too baring any external forces. Obviously what others refer to as throw angle is really more of a reaction to spin or the angle at which the ball hits the paddle or the motion of the paddle when it hits the ball.   Spin, the motion of the paddle and the angle of incidence to the paddle ARE NOT ATTRIBUTES OF THE RUBBER OR BLADE!!!. If I put my paddles on the table and drop balls on them the balls bounce straight up. The blades or rubbers do not magically make the ball go in any direction. I can spin the ball as I drop it and the reaction will be different. I see way too many opinions with little engineering or scientific proof. Does anybody have an idea of how fast a ball rotates when looped?   Lets way it is 20 revs per second.   I think a better evaluation is to drop a ball vertically at 20 revs per second from 1 meter and see how far the ball travels before it hits the table or paddle again. At least then we would have a stand measure of how a blade/rubber reacts. I know that my T05 has an extremely low "throw angle" when I play a chopper and a high "throw angle" when playing a looper. The explanation is obvious.

Troll 6/10

Throw angle, I believe, was a term coined first by "Don Iguana Labs", a table tennis equipment enthusiast group in the US in the mid to late 1990's. Although they were originally based out of Maryland, the network spread across the US. They were able to obtain samples of newer equipment from vendors, try out the equipment, and write consensus, subjective internet posted reviews on newer (at the time) table tennis equipment. "Testers" for the group ranged from 800 rated level chronic EJ's to national team players.  I'm not sure if anyone ever claimed this to be a measurable entity. Nevertheless, the concept of "throw angle" was something that the testers seemed to understand as a method of describing equipment to each other. It has seemgly been incorporated into EJ terminology opver time.

Wouldn't throw angle simply be another way of saying how grippy/spinny the rubber is?  Obviously, a grippier rubber will have greater reaction to spin and throw the ball all over the place, though not always 'high' or 'low'.