Question

A baseball player hits a ball. Which is the best description of the energy of the ball as it flies over the pitcher’s head?

Answer 1

When the bat touches the ball, the kinetic energy from the bat gets transfered and stored in the ball as elastic potential energy. A part of the ball is compressed when the energy is being stored and as per the hooke’s law it uses its potential energy to decompress  The decompression results in the ball pushing the surface of bat and the ball bounces away with the potential energy transfering back into kinetic energy.

Answer 2

The right option is; b. mechanical

Mechanical energy is the best description of the energy of the ball as it flies over the pitcher’s head.

Mechanical energy is the energy that an object acquires due to its position or due to its motion. From the question, the baseball player has chemical potential energy (stored as food) which is transformed into work. As the baseball player hits the ball, there is energy exchange in which the ball acquires energy to perform its work. The energy obtained by the ball upon which work is done is called mechanical energy.