Extracting Baseball Wisdom from Olympic Curling

Curling in Beijing.Perhaps the second most exciting game in the world is curling. Curling is played on ice. Players push heavy granite stones across the ice. Friction is low because contact between the stone and ice is small (each stone’s bottom is convex and the ice is pebbled). Friction is reduced further because the stone is so heavy that a micro-layer of water forms on the ice pebbles. As the stone travels, the shooting team can sweep the ice in front of the stone which changes how the stone travels.

“The first written evidence [of curling] appeared in Latin, when in 1540, John McQuhin, a notary in Paisley, Scotland, recorded in his protocol book a challenge between John Sclater, a monk…