How Does This Pool Table Know Which Ball Is White?

[Gizmo j]

I was playing pool at a bar near my apartment and somehow every time the white ball goes down a hole it always shows up in the front but the other color balls don't ...

How does the pool table know which ball is white? And how does it always show up in the front?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Been a while since I played pool but if I recall the cue ball is a little bigger than the other balls so there is probably a mechanism where the smaller balls can fit that the cue ball can't so it splits them up that way. I guess similar to one of those money sorter machines. Wild guess though.

 

[dank69]

I always thought it was a weight-based mechanism.

Google says magnets. How do they work?

 

[snoopy7548]

Were you solids or stripes?

 

[zinfamous]

There's a little bird in there that clocks in and out every day, and his job is to inspect the balls as they fall through, to separate the cue ball and return it, and to end the game when the 8 ball falls through and locks all the balls.

 

[JM Aggie08]

Why would you not just Google this?

 

[sdifox]

they have someone in the table sorting the balls. I think only those born in 1994.

How does the ball return work on a coin-operated pool table?

On a coin-operated pool table, if you hit one of the numbered balls into a pocket, the ball goes into a locked storage compartment. If you hit the cue ball into a pocket, the table returns it. How does the pool table tell the difference?

electronics.howstuffworks.com

 

[dullard]

Been a while since I played pool but if I recall the cue ball is a little bigger than the other balls so there is probably a mechanism where the smaller balls can fit that the cue ball can't so it splits them up that way. I guess similar to one of those money sorter machines. Wild guess though.

My parents had a pool table, your reply is exactly how their table worked. The cue ball, being a bit larger, would hit a bar at the top and be directed towards the front. All other balls which were a bit smaller didn't hit that bar and were directed towards the other side.

 

[Motostu]

The table is biased and puts any ball that isn't white in 'jail', while letting the white one go free.