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Today’s San Diego Business Journal reports on a new self-correcting golf ball from Polara whose design was influenced by wind tunnel experiments conducted by Princeton’s Alexander Smits, chair of mechanical and aerospace engineering.

“The secret behind the science is the dimple pattern,” David Felker, Polara’s chief technology officer, tells the journal. “The same sort of physics that keeps missiles going straight makes our ball go straight.”

The golf ball’s dimples are deep at the circumference and tiny at the poles, which helps the ball “self-correct” for poor swings, the journal reports.

Smits, by the way, was recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering.