If you use a heavier racket, will you be able to hit a badminton birdie farther? — J, California
Any time you hit an object with a racket or bat, there’s a question about how heavy the racket or bat should be for maximum distance. Actually, it isn’t weight that’s most important in a racket or bat, it’s mass—the measure of the racket or bat’s inertia. The more massive a racket or bat is, the more inertia it has and the less it slows down when it collides with something else. A more massive racket will slow less when it hits a birdie. From that observation, you might think that larger mass is always better. But a more massive racket or bat is also harder to swing because of its increased inertia.
So there are trade offs in racket or bat mass. For badminton, the birdie has so little mass that it barely slows the racket when the two collide. Increasing the racket’s mass would allow it to hit the birdie slightly farther, but only if you continued to swing the racket as fast as before. Since increasing the racket mass will make it harder to swing, it’s probably not worthwhile. In all likelihood, people have experimented with racket masses and have determined that the standard mass is just about optimal for the game.