Ball

[Guest]

discounting the fact that the ball is "touching the air", throw it straight up.

[Guest]

Well, technically speaking, to throw the ball straight up and to let it orbit the planet once first are one and the same. In both cases, you accelerate the ball away from gravity without achieving escape velocity, then gravity pulls it back around in an orbit. Standing on Earth and throwing it straight up, you have a very eccentric orbit that crosses paths with the planet's surface--meaning it'll come out of orbit very rapidly before it actually makes a complete revolution--but you are essentially doing the same thing either way.

Also, technically speaking the ball hits billions of air molecules on the way up, but the scenario would work the same without air. If you want to allow contact with air, you could spin it really, really fast, and make it come back to you like a boomerang, or do like Clarinetman suggested and throw it into a stream of moving air. I've actually shot arrows at an angle away from me so they came back to me with the wind, but I was still relying a lot on gravity.

Or you could have a transforming ball that converts to a flying machine after you throw it, like those little bombs the Green Goblin uses in Spiderman!

i hate it when people try to sound smart but completely miss the point altogether. What a nerd.

[Guest]

Ok people this is logic not science...

Throw it straight up in the air as hard as you can and gravity will bring it right back to ya, not a tornado or Mars or the invisible man...logical, weird

[Guest]

easy just tie the ball to a stretchy string and no matter how hard you throw it, it always comes back

[Guest]

u throw it stright towards sky by using u r power

it will comes to u only

[Guest]

throw it straight up in the air

[Guest]

uhhh throw the ball straight up

[Guest]

What if someone was a horribe thrower and there best throw went nowhere? Would work out?

[Guest]

Well if you just threw the ball into a really strong wind at the right angle it would come right back to you. BUT it would depend on the ball.

[Guest]

The answer is simple.

Throw the ball ("as hard as you can") straight up. It'll fall right back to you.

Sometimes the answer is the simplest; there is often no need to bend physical rules or come up with complex solutions.

[Guest]

THROW IT UP IN THE AIR.

[Guest]

Throw the ball straight up over your head, into the air

[Guest]

cant u throw ball from ONE HAND TO ANOTHER

RATHEESH.K.NAIR

INDIA

[Guest]

throw in up in the air and let it come back.

[Guest]

The answer that I came up with made a little more sense and took a little more thinking than just 'throwing the ball straight up in the air'. The correct answer should have been the ball is a bowling ball, because if you throw the ball down the lane and it still doesn't hit the pins it will come back to you. I know I didn't make up the riddle, but I thought this solution to be a little more entertaining.

[Guest]

Throw it straight up. DUH

[Guest]

Cant u just throw it up in the air

I cant recall u saying that u cant throw it verticly

[Guest]

you just thro it up in the air and gravity will pull it back down to you, it will stop in mid air if that makes it fancy

[Guest]

Its impossible. That can only happen if you had a bomerang. (MAYBE)

[Guest]

Its impossible. That can only happen if you had a bomerang. (MAYBE)

[Guest]

Or if you want to throw it up in the air, then gravity would bring it done, unless you throw it in front of you!

[Guest]

Throw the ball straight up in the air. It will come back to you, even without hitting anything.

[Guest]

Just with all the energy one has, one should throw the ball high up in the sky striaght in a clear lawn. Thus, the ball won't hit anything and come back to you.

[Guest]

My guess is you threw the ball straight up.

[Guest]

You throw it against a wind the force of which equals the maximum speed at which you can throw the ball.