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Baseball players sometimes cheat! One popular method has been to cork the bat. You drill out some of the core of the bat, and replace the heavy wood with light cork. You can then swing the lighter bat faster, and thus hit the ball further.
棒球选手有时会作弊！其中一种流行的作弊手段就是在球棒里面填充软木。把球棒中心挖空，然后用软木代替重木，你就可以轻而易举地把球棒挥得更快，把球打得更远了。

Of course, most ballplayers aren’t physicists, so they don’t realize that by making the bat lighter, they’re reducing the collision efficiency. You swing faster, but get a limber contact. In theory, anyway.
当然，大多数棒球选手都不是物理学家，所以他们没有意识到球棒变轻会降低碰撞效率。无论如何，在理论上，你挥棒的速度越快，击出的球就越绵软如丝。

So physicists led by the University of Illinois’s Alan Nathan tested corked bats under controlled conditions. The doctored lumber actually usually causes the ball to go less far, they found. The work appears in the online forum the Physics arXiv. So for a power hitter to cork his bat is a bad idea.
为此，在伊利诺斯大学艾伦·内森的领导下，物理学家们在恒定条件下对用软木填充的球棒进行了测试。他们发现，一般情况下，改造过后的球棒的确让球飞得更没那么远。这项发现已刊登在物理arXiv的网络论坛上。所以对于一个击球手来说，用软木填充球棒可不是一个好主意。

But the researchers note that, ironically, a corked bat might result in more homers from non-homer hitters. Who can watch a pitch slightly longer before swinging, make up for the lost time with a faster swing and achieve more solid contact more often. So a corked bat is a bad idea for Sammy Sosa, who got caught using one. But a good idea for, say, Bucky Dent.
但具有讽刺意味的是，研究人员也提到，用软木填充球棒可能让原来打不出本垒打的球手打出更多的本垒打。他们在挥棒之前能稍微多观察投球一段时间，然后用更快的挥棒速度来弥补时间损失，从而能更频繁地稳定击球。因此对于塞米·索萨来说，在棒球里填充软木是个馊主意——因为他曾试过这样作弊被抓。但是对于某些人来说——比如说布基·丹特——这就是个好主意咯。

—Steve Mirsky

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