The Webinar on The Mathematics in Sports Balls took place on Thursday, July 15th, 2021 from 2 pm until 3 pm, with Dr. Andres Navas, Professor in the Math and Computer Science Department of the University of Santiago, Chile, as our invited speaker. This virtual event was free and open to the general public.
The invited speaker explained the mathematics in the balls used in soccer, volleyball, basketball and other sports. Dr. Andres Navas showed that the soccer ball is a truncated icosahedron or a dodecahedron and highlighted that the icosahedron and the dodecahedron are dual polyhedra. The speaker presented several examples of images of sports balls that violate the geometric laws. Dr. Andres Navas also used Euler’s formula (vertices – edges + faces = 2) to demonstrate why a ball of hexagonal faces does not exist.
