Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards

LYMAN JAMES BRJGGS 317
active interest in its expeditions, and in his laboratory supervised the design
and construction of many of the scientific instruments required by the Society.
In the 17 years he held the chairmanship of the research committee of the
Society, he personally directed or was closely involved in its many
expeditions.53
Well past retirement age when he left the Director's office, Dr. Briggs
spent the last years of his long life in his old laboratory in West building.
A baseball player while at Michigan State and avid fan in the stands at Grif-
fith Stadium in Washington, he was in his 85th year when he determined to
settle a long disputed phenomenon: scientific proof of the degree a baseball
can be made to curve in the 60-foot throw from the pitcher's box to the
plate. With the aid of the wind tunnel he designed in 1918 and the pitching
staff of the Washington Senators, he made a series of quantitative measure-
ments of the relation of spin to deflection of a pitched baseball at various
speeds.
In laboratory tests to measure spin, Dr. Briggs repeatedly projected
baseballs, rotated on a rubber tee to provide spin, out of a mounted air gun
at a paper target 60 feet away. Air flow phenomena were measured in the
wind tunnel, and still other studies with a suspended camera measured the
curvature of the ball in flight. Finally, at Griffith Stadium, members of the
pitching staff hurled endless balls to which light, flat tapes were fastened,
and the number of completed turns in the twisted tape were counted at
home plate.
With baseballs thrown at a speed of 100. feet per second, roughly
68 miles per hour, and well within a professional pitcher's capability, Briggs
recorded lateral deflections in the 60-foot flight from the pitcher's box of
11.7 inches at 1,200 revolutions per minute and 17.5 inches at 1,800 revolu-
tions per minute as the maximums attainable. The spin rather than the
speed of the ball, he found, determined its "break." The feat, reported in
every newspaper in the country, was a logical development in the field of
mechanics, Dr. Briggs said, closely related to the low-speed ballistics and
projectile work of the Bureau. And it had been
As the new Director, Dr. Briggs presided over a temporary eclipse of
the Bureau. For several years his paramount concern was to hold on to his
scientific staff by all means available and to justify research that was not
immediately productive of depression-thwarting results.55 Throughout the
decade he was aware of something less than enthusiasm on the part of the
See below, pp. 355—357.
Briggs, "Effect of spin and speed on the lateral deflection (curve) of a baseball; and
the Magnus effect for smooth spheres," Am. J. Phys. 27, 589 (1959) ; interview, Nov. 2,
1962.
Letter, LJB to Secretary of Commerce, Oct. 10, 1932 (NBS Box 339, AG).