Study of curling mechanism by precision kinematic measurements of curling stone’s motion

Abstract

Why do curling stones curl? That is a question physicists are often asked, yet no answer has been established. Stones rotating clockwise curl right, contrary to our naive expectations. After a century of debate between contradicting hypotheses, this paper provides a possible answer based on experimental evidence. A digital image analysis technique was used to perform precision kinematic measurements of a curling stone’s motion to identify the curling mechanism. We observed a significant left–right asymmetric friction due to velocity dependence on the friction coefficient. Combined with the discrete point-like nature of the friction between ice and stone, swinging around slow-side friction points has been concluded as the dominant origin of the curling. Many new angular momentum transfer phenomena have been found, supporting this conclusion.