...So through these deliberations we enhance ourselves as informed citizens and commentators of the world. We sharpen our observations on the enigma of the human species and engage in the understanding of human existence, and in so doing become de facto existentialists and pseudo polymaths.
There are many other cultural factors which bear upon the question ‘what is Badminton for?‘ Having reviewed some of them, we can now turn to the science of the game.
To reiterate the claim made above, badminton is a kinetic activity. Thus the science can be summarised as lying within the Newtonian concept of force applied to an inert object. It is with force the shuttlecock is launched in defiance of local gravitational conditions, and in turn meets air-resistance at a pressure characteristic of the height above sea-level at the Sobell Centre.
In contrast to tennis balls, the feathers impart substantial drag, causing the shuttlecock to decelerate greatly over distance. The shuttlecock is also extremely aerodynamically stable: regardless of initial orientation, it will turn to fly cork-first, and remain in the cork-first orientation.
One consequence of the shuttlecock's drag is that it requires considerable skill to hit it the full length of the court, which is not the case for most racquet sports. The drag also influences the flight path of a lifted (lobbed) shuttlecock. The parabola of its flight is heavily skewed so that it falls at a steeper angle than it rises. With very high serves, the shuttlecock may even fall vertically.
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