Which one has the greatest average speed during an entire game: a baseball, football, or soccer ball? Why?

Question

I said a baseball because it travels faster than the other balls. Is this correct.

Answer 1

Technically speaking, this question is ill-posed, since it would really depend on the specifics of each situation. However, broadly speaking, we could think about which situation would LIKELY have the highest average speed. I suspect that this question is more about testing your ability to think conceptually and to justify your answer in a reasonable, clear, and mathematically correct way than it is about getting THE correct answer. That said, let me provide some guidance that may help you to formulate an answer.

Remember that, to calculate average speed, we would need to take the TOTAL DISTANCE traveled by each ball and divide by the TOTAL TIME. Let's think about each sport:

In baseball, the ball does travel very fast (probably reaches the fastest instantaneous speeds out of the three sports) and relatively long distances. However, it does so in very short "bursts". That is, in baseball, there is a lot of down time (between pitches, etc) where the ball isn't really moving at all. Also remember that baseball games are often very long.

Similar to baseball, in football, the ball does travel relatively fast, but, again, does so in short "bursts". In football, there is also a lot of down time (where the team is in a huddle, etc).

In contrast, during a soccer game, the ball is moving constantly throughout the entire game. When moving, the ball might not reach speeds quite as high as the other two sports (maybe as fast as football, but probably not as fast as baseball), but it may cover more TOTAL distance due to the fact that it never stops moving for the entire game. Keep in mind also that the average soccer game is usually shorter than the average football or baseball game.

Given these pieces of info, see if you can choose an answer that makes sense and justify your answer using the formula for average speed (total distance/total time).

Answer 2

Generally, Yes. The only other question is how long the time spent not moving is. I would think a soccer ball has a greater average speed than a football because it is constantly in motion (not averaging in 0 velocities). The baseball is not used for a whole game (often an inning). So,it would have a very low average speed because it sits around most of the game. Footballs and soccer balls are changed out more than never, but nowhere near as often. I'd go with soccer ball for that reason.