The Bowling Ball is not Round!

Or at least the core of a bowling ball. Once again I gain amazingly useless but fascinating insight from that big box across from my couch that magically produces sound and images. This time the strange program was called "Some Assembly Required" and it was about different products and the science behind them. One segment talked about the bowling ball. I found out that the core of a bowling ball, especially custom made bowling balls are perfectly round. The reason has almost everything to do with mass and movement. I always wondered why professional bowlers could do that little curvy thing at the end of their bowls and get a strike, while my ball always seemed to just go straight...into the gutter. Objects that are round will always eventually roll along the axis that has the most mass. For example, when you roll an elliptical object, like an egg, except more perfectly elliptical, no matter where you start, as long the egg keeps rolling and no forces other than gravity and friction act on it, it will eventually roll perfectly centered. This also explains why perfect spheres can roll in any direction, because its uniform mass allows any axis to be the major axis. So bowling balls' cores are not spherical so that the little curve eventually takes over and the ball rolls in the desired angle to get a strike. In fact, some bowling ball cores look more like jacks than balls. The heaviest axis of rotation will eventually cause the ball to spin in a different direction. Balls with spherical cores always go in a straight line. So next time I go bowling, I know how to bowl a strike, or at least what I can blame for my pummeling the gutter.