Alan Nathan
Alan Nathan (1946 – ) has been a professor of physics at the University of Illinois since 1977, with a specialty in experimental nuclear/particle physics. Now a professor emeritus, Nathan has spent the past quarter-century creating a body of knowledge around the physics of baseball. His extensive research and numerous articles, in particular on the collision between the bat and ball and the flight of the baseball, has dramatically expanded our quantitative understanding and visualization of baseball’s most fundamental interactions. Beyond the physical interactions themselves, Nathan’s research has examined their implications, from how a batter’s swing might be optimized to the insights extractable out of the data explosion from ballpark-installed technologies.
Related links:
- Read Dan Raley and Dan Levitt’s profile of Alan Nathan in the Spring 2021 Baseball Research Journal
- Read the SABR biography of Alan Nathan, by Dan Raley
- Check out Alan Nathan’s “The Physics of Baseball” website at the University of Illinois
- Read Alan Nathan’s articles published at Baseball Prospectus