On: Confessions of a Theoretical Physicist

[LgWoodenBadger]

and yet plenty of us can expertly catch balls thrown in the air

[Vecr → LgWoodenBadger]

By more or less holding its angle constant by moving. The intercept trajectory is nowhere near optimal.

[snovv_crash → LgWoodenBadger]

That's quadratic plus maybe some drag terms, humans are decent at projecting ballistic arcs.