Physics and Ballroom Dancing

Speaker: Davon Ferrara, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Physics, Belmont University

What happens when you bring an understanding of physics into sports? Researchers and trainers are able to utilize tools that measure the movements, forces, and energy of a modern athlete to help analyze and improve the athlete’s performance. Not only does it help the athlete improve performance, but understanding the underlying physics behind sports movements can also aid in injury prevention. While professional athletes often use sophisticated and expensive equipment to analyze their movements, similar analysis can be done with retail cameras or even a smartphone.

In this informal talk, we will discuss how basic physics concepts can be used to better understand the advanced techniques of ballroom dancing, while relating the theory to the results of a student-driven project using an iPhone to study the physics of cheerleading that can help make physics more interesting and relatable for students.

Davon Ferrara hold a Ph.D. in physics from Vanderbilt University and a B.S. in physics and mathematics from Centenary College of Louisiana. He joined the Department of Chemistry and Physics at Belmont University in the Fall of 2012. Before coming to Belmont, he worked as a pre-major adviser for the College of Arts and Science at Vanderbilt. His primary research is in nanoscience and optics, in particular the interactions between light and metal nanoparticles (plasmonics). Other areas of interest are science education, the intersection of science, politics, and media, and ballroom dancing.