Baby
Balls
No,
they
aren't
children
of
the
ball.
They
are
siblings.
There
are
some
pieces
of
aluminum
foil
which
are
too
small
to
bother
applying
to
the
ball.
The
most
prodigious
source
of
these
is
Hershey's
kiss
wrappers.
When
flattening
out
a
wrapper
(especially
those
of
kisses,
which
are
very
thin
and
gathered
tightly
at
the
corners),
one
finds
that
despite
the
most
careful
attention,
small
bits
do
come
detached
from
the
rest
of
the
wrapper.
This
produces
a
number
of
pieces,
generally
less
than
4
square
cm,
which
may
or
may
not
be
possible
to
flatten
out
and
which
are
so
small
that
they
wouldn't
stay
on
the
ball
long
enough
to
glue
down.
These
are
the
stuff
of
which
baby
balls
are
made.
There
tends
to
be
some
misunderstaning
about
baby
balls.
I
do
not
suddenly
decide
to
start
making
baby
balls
instead
of
building
up
the
ball.
Rather,
all
wrappers
are
used
for
the
ball.
It
is
only
the
aforementioned
lost
bits,
which
would
otherwise
be
waste
material,
that
are
used
to
make
baby
balls.
That
said,
there
are
two
exceptions.
Just
enough
pattie
wrapper
(usually
less
than
one)
is
used
for
a
glue
coat,
and
a
little
bit
of
gum
wrapper
is
used
for
a
finish
coat.
Baby
balls
are
proof
for
those
people
who
insist
that
there
must
be
something
alien,
like
a
glass
marble,
at
the
center
of
the
ball.
As
you
can
see
from
the
history
of
the
ball
as
recorded
in
this
site,
its
growth
(as
measured
by
its
diameter)
slows
as
it
increases
in
size.
This
is
easily
explained
by
the
fact
that
the
surface
area
increases
proportionally
with
the
square
of
the
radius.
In
other
words,
the
larger
the
ball
gets,
the
more
foil
is
required
to
achieve
a
given
increase
in
its
radius
(and,
therefore,
its
diameter).
In
still
simpler
terms;
baby
balls
grow
much
faster
than
the
ball.