Bouncing of Non-Spherical Objects

[CarbonCopy]

How can we calculate the trajectory of non-spherical objects like a cube or an oblong football ? Is it even possible ?

[JohnStu]

How can we calculate the trajectory of non-spherical objects like a cube or an oblong football ? Is it even possible ?

 

Solving such problems would be more about prediction where the velocity after collision would be headed toward rather than the trajectory. It is possible, but very difficult

[swansont]

Probably not possible. The sensitivity to initial conditions is tremendous, so any small deviations will lead to wildly different answers after a few bounces, i.e. it's chaos theory.