A flying disc with the Wham-O registered trademark "Frisbee"
A frisbee (pronounced FRIZ-bee, origin of the term dates to 1957, also called a flying disc or simply a disc) is a gliding toy or sporting item that is generally made of injection molded
plastic and roughly 8 to 10 inches (20 to 25 cm) in diameter with a
pronounced lip. It is used recreationally and competitively for
throwing and catching, as in flying disc games. The shape of the disc is an airfoil
in cross-section which allows it to fly by generating lift as it moves
through the air. Spinning the disc imparts a stabilizing gyroscopic
force, allowing it to be both aimed with accuracy and thrown for
distance.
A wide range is available of flying disc variants. Those for disc golf
are usually smaller but denser and tailored for particular flight
profiles to increase or decrease stability and distance. The longest
recorded disc throw is by David Wiggins Jr. with a distance of 1,109
feet (338 m). Disc dog
sports use relatively slow-flying discs made of more pliable material
to better resist a dog's bite and prevent injury to the dog. Flying
rings are also available which typically travel significantly farther
than any traditional flying disc. Illuminated discs are made of
phosphorescent plastic or contain chemiluminescent fluid or battery-powered LEDs for play after dark. Others whistle when they reach a certain velocity in flight.
The term frisbee is often used generically to describe all flying discs, but Frisbee is a registered trademark of the Wham-O toy company. This protection results in organized sports such as Ultimate or disc golf having to forgo use of the word "Frisbee".
History
A flying disc in flight
A flying disc being caught
Humans have been tossing disc-shaped objects since time immemorial.
At first these were found objects such as rocks worn smooth in stream
beds. Some were tossed for fun while others were used as weapons such as
the discus. Throwing the discus became an event in the Olympic Games of Ancient Greece. Later, objects such as mats, hats, lids, pie tins, and cake pans were found to be perfect for tossing.
Walter Frederick Morrison
and his future wife Lucile had fun tossing a popcorn can lid after a
Thanksgiving Day dinner in 1937. They soon discovered a market for a
light duty flying disc when they were offered 25 cents for a cake pan
that they were tossing back and forth on a beach near Los Angeles,
California.
"That got the wheels turning, because you could buy a cake pan for five
cents, and if people on the beach were willing to pay a quarter for it,
well—there was a business," Morrison told The Virginian-Pilot newspaper in 2007.
The Morrisons continued their business until World War II, when he served in the Army Air Force flying P-47s, and then was a prisoner of war. After the war, Morrison sketched a design for an aerodynamically improved flying disc that he called the Whirlo-Way,
after the famous racehorse. He and business partner Warren Franscioni
began producing the first plastic discs by 1948, after design
modifications and experimentation with several prototypes. They renamed
them the Flyin-Saucer in the wake of reported unidentified flying object sightings.
"We worked fairs, demonstrating it," Morrison told the Virginian-Pilot. The two of them once overheard someone saying that the pair were using wires to make the discs hover, so they developed a sales pitch: "The Flyin-Saucer is free, but the invisible wire is $1." "That's where we learned we could sell these things," he said, because people were enthusiastic about them.
Morrison and Franscioni ended their partnership in early 1950,
and Morrison formed his own company in 1954 called American Trends to
buy and sell Flyin-Saucers, which were being made of a flexible
polypropylene plastic by Southern California Plastics, the original
molder.
He discovered that he could produce his own disc more cheaply, and he
designed a new model in 1955 called the Pluto Platter, the archetype of
all modern flying discs. He sold the rights to Wham-O on January 23,
1957. In 1958, Morrison was awarded U.S. Design Patent D183,626 for his product.
In June 1957, Wham-O co-founders Richard Knerr
and Arthur "Spud" Melin gave the disc the brand name "Frisbee" after
learning that college students were calling the Pluto Platter by that
term, which was derived from the Connecticut-based pie manufacturer Frisbie Pie Company, a supplier of pies to Yale University,
where students had started a campus craze tossing empty pie tins
stamped with the company's logo—the way that Morrison and his wife had
in 1937.
The
first Frisbee (Professional Model) to be produced as a sport disc with
the first disc sport tournament identification, the 1972 Canadian Open Frisbee Championships in Toronto
The man behind the Frisbee's success, however, was the Southern
Californian Edward Headrick, hired in 1964 as Wham-O's general manager
and vice president of marketing. Headrick redesigned the Pluto Platter
by reworking the mold, mainly to remove the names of the planets, but
fortuitously increasing the rim thickness and mass in the process,
creating a more controllable disc that could be thrown more accurately.
Wham-O changed their marketing strategy to promote Frisbee use as
a new sport, and sales skyrocketed. In 1964, the first professional
model went on sale. Headrick patented its design; it featured raised
ridges (the "Rings of Headrick") that were claimed to stabilize flight.
A memorial disc containing some of the ashes of Ed Headrick, on display at Ripley's Believe it or Not!, London
Headrick became known as the father of Frisbee sports;
he founded the International Frisbee Association and appointed Dan
Roddick as its head. Roddick began establishing North American Series
(NAS) tournament standards for various Frisbee sports, such as Freestyle, Guts, Double Disc Court, and overall events.
Headrick later helped to develop the sport of disc golf, which was
first played with Frisbees and later with more aerodynamic beveled-rim
discs, by inventing standardized targets called "pole holes." When Headrick died, he was cremated, and his ashes were molded into memorial discs and given to family and close friends and sold to benefit The Ed Headrick Memorial Museum.
The IFT guts
competitions in Northern Michigan, the Canadian Open Frisbee
Championships (1972), Toronto, ON, the Vancouver Open Frisbee
Championships (1974), Vancouver, BC, the Octad (1974), New Jersey, the
American Flying Disc Open (1974), Rochester, NY and the World Frisbee
Championships (1974), Pasadena, CA are the earliest Frisbee competitions
that presented the Frisbee as a new disc sport. Before these
tournaments, the Frisbee was considered a toy and used for recreation.
Double disc court was invented and introduced in 1974 by Jim Palmeri,
a sport played with two flying discs and two teams of two players. Each
team defends its court and tries to land a flying disc in the opposing
court.
This is a precision and accuracy sport in which individual players
throw a flying disc at a target pole hole. In 1926, In Bladworth,
Saskatchewan, Canada, Ronald Gibson and a group of his Bladworth
Elementary school chums played a game using metal lids, they called "Tin
Lid Golf." In 1976, the game of disc golf was standardized with targets
called "pole holes" invented and developed by Wham-O's Ed Headrick.
In 1974, freestyle competition was created and introduced by Ken Westerfield and Discrafts
Jim Kenner. Teams of two or three players are judged as they perform a
routine that consists of a series of creative throwing and catching
techniques set to music.
A half-court disc game derived from Ultimate, similar to hot box. The
object is to advance the disc on the field of play by passing, and
score points by throwing the flying disc to a teammate in a small
scoring area.
The game of guts was invented by the Healy Brothers in the 1950s and developed at the International Frisbee Tournament (IFT) in Eagle Harbor, Michigan.
Two teams of one to five team members stand in parallel lines facing
each other across a court and throw flying discs at members of the
opposing team.
A patented game scoring points by throwing and deflecting the flying
disc and hitting or entering the goal. The game ends when a team scores
exactly 21 points or "chogs" the disc for an instant win.
The most widely played disc game began in the late 1960s with Joel
Silver and Jared Kass. In the 1970s it developed as an organized sport
with the creation of the Ultimate Players Association by Dan Roddick,
Tom Kennedy and Irv Kalb.
The object of the game is to advance the disc and score points by
eventually passing the disc to a team member in the opposing team's end
zone. Players may not run while holding the disc.
A boomerang is a thrown tool, typically constructed as a flat airfoil,
that is designed to spin about an axis perpendicular to the direction
of its flight. A returning boomerang is designed to return to the
thrower. It is well-known as a weapon used by Indigenous Australians for hunting.
Boomerangs have been historically used for hunting, as well as sport and entertainment. They are commonly thought of as an Australian icon, and come in various shapes and sizes.
Description
A boomerang is a throwing stick with certain aerodynamic
properties, traditionally made of wood, but boomerang-like devices have
also been made from bones. Modern boomerangs used for sport may be made
from plywood or plastics such as ABS, polypropylene, phenolic paper, or carbon fibre-reinforced plastics.
Boomerangs come in many shapes and sizes depending on their geographic
or tribal origins and intended function. Many people think of a
boomerang as the Australian type, although today there are many types of
more easily usable boomerangs, such as the cross-stick, the pinwheel,
the tumble-stick, the Boomabird, and many other less common types.
An important distinction should be made between returning
boomerangs and non-returning boomerangs. Returning boomerangs fly and
are examples of the earliest heavier-than-air human-made flight. A
returning boomerang has two or more airfoil wings arranged so that the spinning creates unbalanced aerodynamic forces that curve its path so that it travels in an ellipse, returning to its point of origin when thrown correctly. While a throwing stick
can also be shaped overall like a returning boomerang, it is designed
to travel as straight as possible so that it can be aimed and thrown
with great force to bring down the game. Its surfaces are therefore
symmetrical and not with the aerofoils that give the returning boomerang
its characteristic curved flight.
The most recognisable type of the boomerang is the L-shaped
returning boomerang; while non-returning boomerangs, throwing sticks (or
kylies) were used as weapons, returning boomerangs have been used
primarily for leisure or recreation. Returning boomerangs were also used
to decoy birds of prey, thrown above the long grass to frighten game birds into flight and into waiting nets. Modern returning boomerangs can be of various shapes or sizes.
Just like the hunting boomerang
of the aboriginal Australians, the valari also did not return to the
thrower but flew straight. Boomerangs used in competitions have
specially designed air-foiling mechanism to enable return, but the
hunting Boomerangs are meant to float straight and hit the target.
Valaris are made in many shapes and sizes. The history of the valari is
rooted in ancient times and evidences can be found in Tamil Sangam
literature "Purananuru". The usual form consists of two limbs set at an
angle; one is thin and tapering while the other is rounded and is used
as a handle. Valaris are usually made of iron which is melted and poured
into moulds, although some may have wooden limbs tipped with iron.
Alternatively, the limbs may have lethally sharpened edges; special
daggers are known as kattari, double-edged and razor sharp, may be attached to some valari.
Etymology
The
origin of the term is mostly certain, but many researchers have
different theories on how the word entered into the English vocabulary.
One source asserts that the term entered the language in 1827, adapted
from an extinct Aboriginal language of New South Wales, Australia, but mentions a variant, wo-mur-rang, which it dates to 1798. The boomerang was first encountered by western people at Farm Cove (Port Jackson), Australia, in December 1804, when a weapon was witnessed during a tribal skirmish:
... the white spectators
were justly astonished at the dexterity and incredible force with which a
bent, edged waddy resembling slightly a Turkish scimytar, was thrown by Bungary,
a native distinguished by his remarkable courtesy. The weapon, thrown
at 20 or 30 yards [18 or 27 m] distance, twirled round in the air with
astonishing velocity, and alighting on the right arm of one of his
opponents, actually rebounded to a distance not less than 70 or 80 yards
[64 or 73 m], leaving a horrible contusion behind, and exciting
universal admiration.
— The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 23 December 1804
David Collins listed "Wo-mur-rāng" as one of eight aboriginal "Names of clubs" in 1798. but was probably referring to the Woomera, which is actually a spear thrower. A 1790 anonymous manuscript on aboriginal language of New South Wales reported "Boo-mer-rit" as "the Scimiter".
In 1822, it was described in detail and recorded as a "bou-mar-rang" in the language of the Turuwal people (a sub-group of the Darug) of the Georges River near Port Jackson. The Turawal used other words for their hunting sticks but used "boomerang" to refer to a returning throw-stick.
History
Distribution of boomerangs in Australia
Australian Aboriginal boomerangs
Boomerangs were, historically, used as hunting weapons, percussive musical instruments, battle clubs, fire-starters, decoys for hunting waterfowl,
and as recreational play toys. The smallest boomerang may be less than
10 centimetres (4 in) from tip to tip, and the largest over 180 cm
(5.9 ft) in length. Tribal
boomerangs may be inscribed or painted with designs meaningful to their
makers. Most boomerangs seen today are of the tourist or competition
sort, and are almost invariably of the returning type.
Depictions of boomerangs being thrown at animals, such as kangaroos,
appear in some of the oldest rock art in the world, the Indigenous Australian rock art of the Kimberly region, which is potentially up to 50,000 years old. Stencils and paintings of boomerangs also appear in the rock art of West Papua, including on Bird's Head Peninsula and Kaimana, likely dating to the Last Glacial Maximum, when lower sea levels led to cultural continuity between Papua and Arnhem Land in Northern Australia. The oldest surviving Australian Aboriginal boomerangs come from a cache found in a peat bog in the Wyrie Swamp of South Australia and date to 10,000 BC.
Although traditionally thought of as Australian, boomerangs have
been found also in ancient Europe, Egypt, and North America. There is
evidence of the use of non-returning boomerangs by the Native Americans
of California and Arizona, and inhabitants of southern India for killing birds and rabbits. Some boomerangs were not thrown at all, but were used in hand to hand combat by Indigenous Australians. Ancient Egyptian examples, however, have been recovered, and experiments have shown that they functioned as returning boomerangs.Hunting sticks discovered in Europe seem to have formed part of the Stone Age arsenal of weapons. One boomerang that was discovered in Obłazowa Cave in the Carpathian Mountains in Poland was made of mammoth's tusk and is believed, based on AMS dating of objects found with it, to be about 30,000 years old. In the Netherlands, boomerangs have been found in Vlaardingen and Velsen from the first century BC. King Tutankhamun, the famous Pharaoh
of ancient Egypt, who died over 3,300 years ago, owned a collection of
boomerangs of both the straight flying (hunting) and returning variety.
4
boomerangs of the tomb of pharahoh Tutankhamun (−1336-1326 BC). These
hardwood boomerangs could not return to their launcher due to their
curvature unlike other boomerangs found in the tomb.
No one knows for sure how the returning boomerang was invented, but
some modern boomerang makers speculate that it developed from the
flattened throwing stick, still used by the Australian Aborigines and other indigenous peoples around the world, including the Navajo
in North America. A hunting boomerang is delicately balanced and much
harder to make than a returning one. The curving flight characteristic
of returning boomerangs was probably first noticed by early hunters
trying to "tune" their throwing sticks to fly straight.
It is thought by some that the shape and elliptical flight path
of the returning boomerang makes it useful for hunting birds and small
animals, or that noise generated by the movement of the boomerang
through the air, or, by a skilled thrower, lightly clipping leaves of a
tree whose branches house birds, would help scare the birds towards the
thrower. It is further supposed by some that this was used to frighten
flocks or groups of birds into nets that were usually strung up between
trees or thrown by hidden hunters.
In southeastern Australia, it is claimed that boomerangs were made to
hover over a flock of ducks; mistaking it for a hawk, the ducks would
dive away, toward hunters armed with nets or clubs.
Traditionally, most boomerangs used by aboriginal groups in
Australia were non-returning. These weapons, sometimes called
"throwsticks" or "kylies", were used for hunting a variety of prey, from
kangaroos
to parrots; at a range of about 100 metres (330 ft), a 2-kg (4.4 lb)
non-returning boomerang could inflict mortal injury to a large animal.
A throwstick thrown nearly horizontally may fly in a nearly straight
path and could fell a kangaroo on impact to the legs or knees, while the
long-necked emu could be killed by a blow to the neck.
Hooked non-returning boomerangs, known as "beaked kylies", used in
northern Central Australia, have been claimed to kill multiple birds
when thrown into a dense flock. Throwsticks are used as multi-purpose
tools by today's aboriginal peoples, and besides throwing could be
wielded as clubs, used for digging, used to start friction fires, and
are sonorous when two are struck together.
Modern usage
Sport boomerangs
Today, boomerangs are mostly used for recreation. There are different
types of throwing contests: accuracy of return; Aussie round; trick
catch; maximum time aloft;
fast catch; and endurance (see below). The modern sport boomerang
(often referred to as a 'boom' or 'rang') is made of Finnish birch plywood, hardwood, plastic or composite materials
and comes in many different shapes and colours. Most sport boomerangs
typically weigh less than 100 grams (3.5 oz), with MTA boomerangs
(boomerangs used for the maximum-time-aloft event) often under 25 grams
(0.9 oz).
Boomerangs have also been suggested as an alternative to clay pigeons in shotgun sports, where the flight of the boomerang better mimics the flight of a bird offering a more challenging target.
The modern boomerang is often computer-aided designed with precision airfoils. The number of "wings" is often more than 2 as more lift is provided by 3 or 4 wings than by 2.
Beginning in the later part of the twentieth century, there has been a
bloom in the independent creation of unusually designed art boomerangs.
These often have little or no resemblance to the traditional historical
ones and on first sight some of these objects may not look like
boomerangs at all. The use of modern thin plywoods and synthetic
plastics have greatly contributed to their success. Designs are very
diverse and can range from animal inspired forms, humorous themes,
complex calligraphic and symbolic shapes, to the purely abstract.
Painted surfaces are similarly richly diverse. Some boomerangs made
primarily as art objects do not have the required aerodynamic properties
to return.
Aerodynamics
A
returning boomerang is a rotating wing. It consists of two or more
arms, or wings, connected at an angle; each wing is shaped as an airfoil section. Although it is not a requirement that a boomerang be in its traditional shape, it is usually flat.
Boomerangs can be made for right or left handed throwers. The
difference between right and left is subtle, the planform is the same
but the leading edges of the aerofoil sections are reversed. A
right-handed boomerang makes a counter-clockwise, circular flight to the
left while a left-handed boomerang flies clockwise to the right.
Most sport boomerangs weigh between 70 to 110 grams (2.5 to 3.9 oz),
have a wingspan of 250 to 350 millimetres (9.8 to 13.8 in) and a range
of between 20 and 40 m (22 and 44 yd).
A falling boomerang starts spinning, and most then fall in a
spiral. When the boomerang is thrown with high spin, a boomerang flies
in a curved rather than a straight line. When thrown correctly, a
boomerang returns to its starting point.
As the wing rotates and the boomerang moves through the air, the airflow
over the wings creates lift on both "wings". However, during one-half
of each blade's rotation, it sees a higher airspeed, because the
rotation tip-speed and the forward speed add, and when it is in the
other half of the rotation, the tip speed subtracts from the forward
speed. Thus if thrown nearly upright each blade generates more lift at
the top than the bottom.
While it might be expected that this would cause the boomerang to tilt
around the axis of travel, because the boomerang has significant angular
momentum, the gyroscopic precession causes the plane of rotation to tilt about an axis that is 90 degrees to the direction of flight causing it to turn. When thrown in the horizontal plane, as with a Frisbee,
instead of in the vertical, the same gyroscopic precession will cause
the boomerang to fly violently, straight up into the air and then crash.
Fast Catch boomerangs usually have three or more symmetrical
wings (seen from above), whereas a Long Distance boomerang is most often
shaped similar to a question mark.
Maximum Time Aloft boomerangs mostly have one wing considerably longer
than the other. This feature, along with carefully executed bends and
twists in the wings help to set up an 'auto-rotation' effect to maximise
the boomerang's hover-time in descending from the highest point in its
flight.
Some boomerangs have turbulators—bumps
or pits on the top surface that act to increase the lift as boundary
layer transition activators (to keep attached turbulent flow instead of
laminar separation).
Throwing technique
Flight path of a returning boomerang
Boomerangs are generally thrown in treeless, large open spaces that
are twice as large as the range of the boomerang, the flight direction,
left or right will depend upon the boomerang, not the thrower. A
right-handed or left-handed boomerang can be thrown with either hand,
but throwing a boomerang with the wrong hand requires a throwing motion
that many throwers may find awkward. The following technique applies to a
right-handed boomerang, the directions are reversed for a left-handed
boomerang.
A properly thrown boomerang should curve around to the left,
climb gently, level out in mid-flight, arc around and descend slowly,
and then finish by popping up slightly, hovering, then stalling near the
thrower. Ideally, this momentary hovering or stalling will allow the
catcher the opportunity to clamp their hands shut horizontally on the
boomerang from above and below, sandwiching the centre between their
hands.
The boomerang is thrown held between finger and thumb at the
bottom end, in a near-vertical position, with the upper aerofoil section
to the outside of the thrower and the 'hook' of the boomerang facing
forward so as to present the leading edges of the aerofoils to the
slipstream when spinning.
The boomerang is aimed directly into, or 3 to 5 degrees right, of
the wind, and the flight then takes it left through the "eye of the
wind" and finally returning downwind. The accuracy of the throw starts
with an understanding of the weight and aerodynamics of that particular
boomerang and the strength and direction of the wind; from this, the
thrower chooses the precise angle of tilt of the boomerang from
vertical, the angle against the wind and the strength of the throw. The
stronger the wind, the softer the boomerang is thrown and the less the
tilt off vertical. The boomerang can be made to return without the aid
of any wind but the wind speed and direction must be taken into account.
A light wind of three to five miles per hour is considered ideal. If
the wind is strong enough to fly a kite, then it may be too strong for a
given boomerang.
A great deal of trial and error is required to perfect the throw
over time. Different boomerang designs have different flight
characteristics and are suitable for different conditions.
Competitions and records
A
World Record achievement was made on 3/6/07 by Tim Lendrum in Aussie
Round. Tim scored 96 out of 100, giving him a National Record as well as
an equal World Record throwing an "AYR" made by expert boomerang maker
Adam Carroll from ONE Boomerangs formerly Real Boomerangs.
In international competition, a world cup is held every second year. As of 2017,
teams from Germany and the United States dominated international
competition. The individual World Champion title was won in 2000, 2002,
2004, 2012 and 2016 by Swiss thrower Manuel Schütz. In 1992, 1998, 2006
and 2008 Fridolin Frost from Germany won the title.
The team competitions of 2012 and 2014 were won by Boomergang (an
international team). World champions were Germany in 2012 and Japan in
2014 for the first time. Boomergang was formed by individuals from
several countries, including the Colombian Alejandro Palacio. In 2016
USA became team world champion.
Competition disciplines
Modern boomerang tournaments usually involve some or all of the events listed below
In all disciplines the boomerang must travel at least 20 metres (66 ft)
from the thrower. Throwing takes place individually. The thrower stands
at the centre of concentric rings marked on an open field.
Events include:
Aussie Round: considered by many to be the ultimate test
of boomeranging skills. The boomerang should ideally cross the 50-metre
(160 ft) circle and come right back to the centre. Each thrower has five
attempts. Points are awarded for distance, accuracy and the catch.
Accuracy: points are awarded according to how close the
boomerang lands to the centre of the rings. The thrower must not touch
the boomerang after it has been thrown. Each thrower has five attempts.
In major competitions there are two accuracy disciplines: Accuracy 100
and Accuracy 50.
Endurance: points are awarded for the number of catches achieved in 5 minutes.
Fast Catch: the time taken to throw and catch the boomerang five times. The winner has the fastest timed catches.
Trick Catch/Doubling: points are awarded for trick catches
behind the back, between the feet, and so on. In Doubling, the thrower
has to throw two boomerangs at the same time and catch them in sequence
in a special way.
Consecutive Catch: points are awarded for the number of catches achieved before the boomerang is dropped. The event is not timed.
MTA 100 (Maximal Time Aloft, 100 metres (328 ft)):
points are awarded for the length of time spent by the boomerang in the
air. The field is normally a circle measuring 100 m. An alternative to
this discipline, without the 100 m restriction is called MTA unlimited.
Long Distance: the boomerang is thrown from the middle point
of a 40-metre (130 ft) baseline. The furthest distance travelled by the
boomerang away from the baseline is measured. On returning, the
boomerang must cross the baseline again but does not have to be caught. A
special section is dedicated to LD below.
Juggling: as with Consecutive Catch, only with two boomerangs. At any given time one boomerang must be in the air.
Guinness World Record – Smallest Returning Boomerang
Non-discipline record:
Smallest Returning Boomerang: Sadir Kattan of Australia in 1997 with 48
millimetres (1.9 in) long and 46 millimetres (1.8 in) wide. This tiny
boomerang flew the required 20 metres (22 yd), before returning to the
accuracy circles on 22 March 1997 at the Australian National
Championships.
Guinness World Record – Longest Throw of Any Object by a Human
Long-distance boomerang throwers aim to have the boomerang go the
furthest possible distance while returning close to the throwing point.
In competition the boomerang must intersect an imaginary surface defined
as an infinitevertical
projection of a 40-metre (44 yd) line centred on the thrower. Outside
of competitions, the definition is not so strict, and throwers may be
happy simply not to walk too far to recover the boomerang.
General properties
Long-distance
boomerangs are optimised to have minimal drag while still having enough
lift to fly and return. For this reason, they have a very narrow
throwing window, which discourages many beginners from continuing with
this discipline. For the same reason, the quality of manufactured
long-distance boomerangs is often non-deterministic.
Today's long-distance boomerangs have almost all an S or ? – question mark shape and have a beveled
edge on both sides (the bevel on the bottom side is sometimes called an
undercut). This is to minimise drag and lower the lift. Lift must be
low because the boomerang is thrown with an almost total layover (flat).
Long-distance boomerangs are most frequently made of composite
material, mainly fibre glass epoxy composites.
Flight path
The projection of the flight path of long-distance boomerang on the ground resembles a water drop.
For older types of long-distance boomerangs (all types of so-called big
hooks), the first and last third of the flight path are very low, while
the middle third is a fast climb followed by a fast descent. Nowadays,
boomerangs are made in a way that their whole flight path is almost
planar with a constant climb during the first half of the trajectory and
then a rather constant descent during the second half.
From theoretical point of view, distance boomerangs are
interesting also for the following reason: for achieving a different
behaviour during different flight phases, the ratio of the rotation
frequency to the forward velocity has a U-shaped function, i.e., its derivative crosses 0. Practically, it means that the boomerang being at the furthest point has a very low forward velocity. The kinetic energy of the forward component is then stored in the potential energy.
This is not true for other types of boomerangs, where the loss of
kinetic energy is non-reversible (the MTAs also store kinetic energy in
potential energy during the first half of the flight, but then the
potential energy is lost directly by the drag).
Related terms
In Noongar language, kylie is a flat curved piece of wood similar in appearance to a boomerang that is thrown when hunting for birds and animals.
"Kylie" is one of the Aboriginal words for the hunting stick used in warfare and for hunting animals.
Instead of following curved flight paths, kylies fly in straight lines
from the throwers. They are typically much larger than boomerangs, and
can travel very long distances; due to their size and hook shapes, they
can cripple or kill an animal or human opponent. The word is perhaps an
English corruption of a word meaning "boomerang" taken from one of the
Western Desert languages, for example, the Warlpiri word "karli".
In social psychology, the boomerang effect refers to the unintended consequences
of an attempt to persuade resulting in the adoption of an opposing
position instead. It is sometimes also referred to "the theory of psychological reactance", stating that attempts to restrict a person's freedom often produce an "anticonformity boomerang effect".
Conditions and explanations
Early recognition
Hovland, Janis and Kelly first recorded and named the boomerang effect in 1953, noting that it is more likely under certain conditions:
When weak arguments are paired with a negative source.
When weak or unclear persuasion leads the recipient to believe the
communicator is trying to convince them of a different position than
what the communicator intends.
When the persuasion triggers aggression or unalleviated emotional arousal.
When the communication adds to the recipient's knowledge of the norms and increases their conformity.
When non-conformity to their own group results in feelings of guilt or social punishment.
When the communicator's position is too far from the recipient's
position and thus produces a "contrast" effect and thus enhances their
original attitudes.
Later in 1957, Hovland, Sherif and Harvey
further discussed the necessity of understanding these unintended
attitude changes in persuasion communication and suggested possible
approaches for analysis via underlying motivational processes,
psychophysical stimuli, as well as ego-involving verbal material. Jack
Brehm and Arthur Cohen were among the first to provide theoretical
explanations.
Jack Brehm first raised attention to the phenomenon a fait accompli
that might conceivably create dissonance if an event has led to the
opposite behavior predicted at a prior point. He conducted an experiment
to examine the behaviors of eighth graders eating a disliked vegetable.
About half of them were told that their parents would be informed on
the vegetable they ate. Then liking the vegetable was measured before
and after the procedure. The results show that for kids who indicated
little or no discrepancy between serving and actually eating the
disliked vegetable at home, they should experience little or no
dissonance in liking the vegetable from the low to the high consequence
condition. They thereby concluded that the greater was the individual's
initial dislike, the greater was the pressure produced by the experiment
to increase his liking. There was also larger resistance to change the
attitude when the initial attitude was more extreme. However, they
argued that in this experiment, the pressure to reduce dissonance
increased more rapidly with increasing discrepancy than did the
resistance against change, which verified Festinger's cognitive
dissonance theory.
In a follow up, Sensenig and Brehm focused on the boomerang effect in experiments and applied Brehm's psychological reactance theory to explain the unintended attitudinal change.
Psychological reactance theory analysis
Sensenig & Brehm applied Brehm's reactance theory
to explain the boomerang effect. They argued that when a person thinks
that his freedom to support a position on attitude issue is eliminated,
the psychological reactance will be aroused and then he consequently
moves his attitudinal position in a way so as to restore the lost
freedom. He told college students to write an essay supporting one side
of five issues and led some of them believe that their persuasive essays
might influence the decision on those issues. Therefore, the people who
had the impression that their preference was taken into account in the
decision regarding which side they would support on the 1st issue showed
attitude change in favor of the preferred position, while others who
are concerned with their freedom lost move toward the intended position
held by the communicator.
This experiment resulted in various links in the chain of
reasoning: (a) when a person's freedom is threatened, his motivational
state will move toward restoration of the threatened freedom; (b) the
greater the implied threatened freedoms, the greater the tendency to
restore the threatened freedom will be; (c) the reestablishment of
freedom may take the form of moving one's attitudinal position away from
the position forced by others.
Jack Brehm and Sharon Brehm later developed psychological reactance theory and discussed its applications.
They also listed a series of reactions reactance can evoke in addition
to the boomerang effect, which includes but is not limited to related
boomerang effect, indirect restoration or vicarious boomerang effects.
Cognitive dissonance theory analysis
The dissonance theory by Leon Festinger
has thrived the progress of social psychology research in the 1960s as
it is not confined to the prediction of intended influence but can
support almost all sub fields of psychology studies. Although Festinger
himself was ambiguous about the role of commitment in the theory, later
researchers such as Brehm and Cohen
have emphasized its importance in providing a general conceptualization
of the boomerang effect. Earlier studies by Thibaut and Strickland and Kelley and Volkhart
have also provided support to this line of reasoning by Dissonance
Theory despite that they were not phrased using the exact terminology.
According to Cohen,
dissonance theory can provide not only an explanation, but also a
prediction of both the intended and the unintended influence of
persuasion communication on attitudinal change. In his experiment, he
presented factors that can lead to a boomerang effect, while suggesting a
broader view of the unintended consequences than simply the case of a
response to attempted attitude change. Cohen proposed the following
dissonance formulation model for the unintended attitude change by
persuasive communication. First, suppose that dissonance aroused in
regard to some unspecified cognition. According to Festinger's Cognitive
Dissonance Theory, we know the dissonance could be reduced by a change
in the cognition. Now suppose the resistance to change is great because
the actual event cannot be changed and its meaning is ambiguous (for
example, the person is strongly committed to the original cognition
position), then the person will resort to other forms to reduce or
eliminate the dissonance. In this latter form, one can solve the
discrepancy problem through the addition of elements consonant either
with the original cognition, in which produced the boomerang effect.
Cohen formulated a situation of "mutual boomerang effect", in which the
communicator is strongly committed to convince the other person of his
attitudinal position by means of a persuasion communication. Because of
this strong original attitude position the communicator holds, Cohen
predicts that the more distant the target person's original attitude,
the more dissonance will be also experienced by the communicator. The
expected "unintended influence" arises when the communicator tried to
persuade the other of the worth of his own position by becoming even
more extreme in that position. He asked his subjects write a strongly
persuasive essay to the partners with an opposite side of attitude on an
issue, who are actually confederates. The subjects here thus act as the
communicator to bring their partners over to their own sides. The
subjects were also asked to rate the partners' likability and
friendliness before they read "their partner's essay" returned. Cohen
used attitude change of the partners as the manipulation of dissonance
where he randomly allocated his subjects into high-dissonance group and
low-dissonance group. The results exposed strong boomerang effects for
high-dissonance group. He also found out that the response to the
likability and friendliness of the partners are relevant. The data
showed that the difference between dissonance conditions was largely
confined to and exaggerated for those subjects who originally rated
their partners to be relatively more likable and friendly.
Cohen's study on boomerang effect has broadened the scope of
persuasive communication from merely the recipient's reaction to the
persuasive message to the communicator's attempt to influence the
target. Dissonance theory suggests that the basic issue is under what
conditions a person strengthens his original attitude as a way of
reducing some attitudinal inconsistency. Cohen suggested that, one can
reduce the dissonance via boomerang when dissonance is created (a) with a
strong commitment to convincing the other person, (b) with no
anticipation of a further influence attempt, and (c) with no easy chance
to repudiate the other person. His results on the likability have
strengthened the interpretation as the low-dissonance group who found
their partners likable and friendly move toward them in the attitudes
more, while likability only increased dissonance for the highs.
In other words, the dissonance can be reduced by becoming more
extreme in the original position, thereby increasing the proportion of
cognition supporting the initial stand and decreasing the proportion of
dissonant cognition.
Other analysis
Boomerang
effect is sometimes also referred to the attribution/attitude boomerang
effect. Researchers applied Heider's attribution theory
to explain why it would occur. For example, Skowronski, Carlston, Mae,
and Crawford demonstrated association-based effects in their study on
spontaneous trait transference.
Despite that the descriptions of other people are independent of the
communicator, simple associative processes link the two together and
produce boomerang phenomena.
Examples of applications
Consumer behavior
Wendlandt and Schrader
studied the resistance of consumers against loyalty programs
encountered in relationship marketing. They found that (a) contractual
bonds provoke reactance effects, (b) social-psychological bonds
increased neither reactance nor perceived utility of the program, (c)
economic bonds raised perceived utility to a certain threshold level,
from which the reactance effect dominated afterwards. Their results
helped managers to evaluate the effects from implementing consumer
retention measures and advised a cautious and limited application of
loyalty programs.
Deliberate exploitation
The tactic of reverse psychology,
which is a deliberate exploitation of an anticipated boomerang effect,
involves one's attempt of feigning a desire for an outcome opposite to
that of the truly desired one, such that the prospect's resistance will
work in the direction that the exploiter actually desires (e.g., "Please don't fling me in that briar patch").
Persuasive health communication
Researchers
have reported that some public health interventions have produced
effects opposite to those intended in health communication such as
smoking and alcohol consumption behaviors, and thus have employed
various methods to study them under different contexts. Ringold argued
that some consumer's negative reactions on alcoholic beverage warnings
and education efforts can be explained concisely by Brehm's
psychological reactance theory.
These results suggested that boomerang effects should be considered as
potential costs of launching mass communication campaigns. Dillard and
Shen also emphasized the importance of reactance theory to understand
failures in persuasive health communication but argued that there be a
measurement problem.
They thereby developed four alternative conceptual perspectives on the
nature of reactance as well as provided an empirical test of each.
Environmental behaviors
Mann and Hill
investigated the case of litter control and showed that the combination
of different positive influence strategies could actually create
boomerang effect and decrease the amount of appropriate disposal of
waste.
Schultz et al. (2007) conducted a field experiment in which the
normative messages were used to promote household energy conservation
where they found the descriptive message of neighborhood usage created a
boomerang effect depending on the high prior household consumption.
They also eliminated the boomerang effect by adding an injunctive message
about social approval. Their results offered an empirical evidence for
prior research on the theoretical framework for boomerang effects.
Helping
Schwartz
and Howard discussed the occurrence of boomerang effects in helping as
they found out the presence of certain factors presumed to activate
norms favoring helping actually result in decreasing helping.
They identified three related forms of such boomerang effect in helping
behavior. First, when individuals perceived the framing of a help
appeal to have excessive statements of need, they become suspicious and
concern the motive and the true severity of the original request (i.e.,
mistrust). Reactance theory was used to provide the second explanation.
They stated that individuals would respond to threatened freedoms by
either acting counter to the attempted social influence, or declaring
themselves helpless. The third type involves undermining internalized
benefits by external sanctions.
National and human security
Liotta
attempted to understand policy decisions and future choices driven by a
blurring of concerns that involve state-centric security and human
security. She suggested that a boomerang effect occurs in the area in
which excessive focus on one aspect of security at the expense or
detriment of the other is a poor balancing of ends and means in a
changing security environment and instead we should focus on both
national and human security.
Political beliefs
Nyhan & Reifler
conducted experiments in which subjects read mock news articles
including a misleading claim from a politician, or such a claim followed
by a correction. They found that the corrections frequently fail to
reduce misconceptions for the ideological group targeted by the
misinformation. They also found cases of what they called a "backfire
effect" (i.e. a boomerang effect) in which the corrections strengthened
belief in the misinformation. They attribute this to motivated reasoning
on the part of the affected participants. Later research did not find
evidence of this effect though, suggesting it was at least not
prevalent.
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