How does the trajectory of a ball change when you give it a spin? — BHL, Stavanger, Norway
As spinning ball tends to curve in flight. That’s because the ball deflects the airflow around it in one direction and accelerates in the opposite direction. There are two ways in which the spinning ball deflects the air. First, the spinning ball pulls the air it encounters around with it in one direction and produces an imbalance in the airspeeds on its two sides. The air flowing around the side of the ball that is turning back toward the thrower travels faster than the air flowing around the other side of the ball. Since the faster moving air has converted more of its total energy into kinetic energy, the energy of motion, it has less of its energy in the form of pressure. Thus the air pressure on the side of the ball turning toward the thrower is lower than the air pressure on the other side of the ball. The ball accelerates and curves toward the side turning toward the thrower. This effect is called the Magnus effect.
Second, a ball moving at any reasonable speed leaves behind it a turbulent wake and experiences a type of air resistance we call “pressure drag.” When the ball is spinning, this wake forms asymmetrically behind the ball and the pressure drag is not even balanced. The ball pushes the air in the wake to one side and the air pushes back. As a result, the ball accelerates sideways—to the same side as occurs with the Magnus force. In both cases, the ball curves toward the side turning toward the thrower. This second effect is called the wake deflection effect.
The direction in which a thrown ball curves depends on its direction of spin. If the left side of the ball turns back toward you after you have thrown it, the ball will curve toward your left. If the right side turns back toward you, it will curve toward your right. If the bottom turns back toward you, the ball will arc downward faster than it would with gravity alone (for example, topspin in tennis). If the top turns back toward you, the ball will arc upward or will at least not arc downward as much as it would with gravity alone (for example, backspin in golf and hanging fastballs in baseball).