Nicolo Tartaglia, a 16th-century Venetian physicist, probably wouldn't have any trouble making friends at the University, provided he showed up on a Thursday or Saturday night and found a Beirut game to join.
There would be some challenges, of course: He wouldn't know any English; he wouldn't know where he was (the "New World" was discovered just before his birth, and European cartographers wouldn't place it in the correct hemisphere for some time); and he probably wouldn't fit in, unless the theme of the night was "Renaissance Party."
But he would have at least one thing going for him: He would probably be the best Beirut player ever to loft a ping-pong ball at a triangle of cups. After all, Tartaglia's life's work was the most complete description of projectile motion the world had ever seen.
While Tartaglia's insight into ballistics would probably be an advantage, it is far from necessary to have a good time playing.
For the uninitiated, Beirut is one of the most popular late night games played on campus. It's easy to find the requisite equipment: a flat surface, ping-pong balls and a "beverage."
In general, two teams of two players each take turns tossing ping-pong balls at a bowling-alley-style array of cups in front of their opponents. At this point, the subtleties of each individual's set of rules begin to make a difference, but the main idea is that each team then drinks the contents of the cups their opponents hit. The last team with a full cup in front of them wins.
The game seems to draw in participants from just about every area of study: Whether it's a Woody Woo major interested in debating the significance of throwback rules, an engineer trying to figure out just what effect air resistance will have on his next shot or a biologist seeking that magical zone that lies between early evening jitters and late night/early morning inaccuracy.
And just as every table has its rules, every Beirut player has his strategies, quirks and superstitions. Some shoot high, arcing shots. Others throw line drives. Some won't rinse off the ball unless it has become noticeably dirty. Others insist on washing it after every shot. Some religiously dunk the ball in the beverage-du-jour rather than ordinary water, citing some sort of cosmic binding force that attracts like liquids and will thus help guide the ball to its target.
According to Alexander Smits, who chairs the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and teaches its sophomore course on fluid mechanics, while some of these ideas are just fluff, others are solidly grounded in theory.
Though Smits has never played Beirut himself, after a quick description of the rules he was ready to think about some of the problems of the game.
"It's a lot like golf," he said. A good shot, like an approach shot in golf, depends on "putting a nice arc on it, to have it drop down and not go too far."
He suggested that, just like golf, Beirut "in theory is an easy game also, but to go out there and actually do it consistently well is challenging."
The problem of Beirut theory, as it were, is a complicated and subtle one. Almost any strategy has an associated tradeoff. Throwing the ball higher requires a faster shot, and thus burdens the ball with increased air resistance. A low shot, requiring less force, may be easier to put on target, but then the target itself shrinks as the ball is more likely to hit the rim of a cup in front of the target.
When asked about the myth of like liquid particles attracting each other, Smits joked, "Yes, of course. They absolutely attract." He went on to explain that while a force like that is, as you would expect, completely fictional, there may actually be an advantage to dipping the ball in a liquid before throwing it.
By dunking the ball, a player increases its mass, and thus decreases the relative effect of air resistance on ball's flight path, he said.
But what makes the game so difficult to analyze is not so much the theory of the flight itself — which is completely determined by physical laws — as the human decisions and inputs that precede that flight, Smits suggested.
How precisely can a person select the angle and speed at which he releases the ball? That's what matters.
It is likely that early in the game, a high arc may make more sense. While this sort of shot may be harder to control in terms of pinpoint accuracy, the fact that the ball will come down almost vertically means that as long as the ball is somewhere over the target area it has a decent chance to make it into the cup, Smits said. However, toward the end of a game, with a smaller target on the table, just aiming for a region and hoping for the best probably won't be too effective. This need for a more accurate shot may explain the lower arcs seen in the end, he suggested.
One sophomore physics major also took some time to consider the game. He came to many of the same conclusions and ultimately decided that most successful players tend to adopt a similar style. Most people, he suggested, wind up with a common overhand toss with a moderate arc, and most are equally effective, at least early in the game.
What really separates the skilled players from the wannabes is the ability to hit the last few cups.
"Either you've got it or you don't," he said of the elusive and precise last shot required to close out a game.
All told, he observed, "There's a lot of physics in Beirut."
But do most players bother to investigate these fundamental forces?
"Probably not," he said.
Thus, while it is certainly possible to take the analytical route — implicitly solving differential equations, tacitly considering coefficients of drag, subtly considering probabilities — many prefer a more laid back approach.
When asked about his personal strategy for playing Beirut, one student quipped, "I just throw the ball and guide it with my mind."
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