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Before explaining the purpose of dimples, we first need to understand the aerodynamic properties of a sphere. Let us start by looking at a smooth sphere without any dimples, like a ping-pong ball. If we lived in an ideal world without any friction, the air flowing around a smooth sphere would behave like that shown in the following diagram. In this figure, the angle q represents position along the surface of the sphere. The leading edge of the sphere that first encounters the incoming airflow is at q=0° while the trailing edge is at q=180°. A position of q=90° is the top of the sphere, q=270° is the bottom, and q=360° brings us back around to the leading edge. Note that in this ideal situation, the air flowing around the sphere forms a perfectly symmetrical pattern. The streamline pattern around the front face, from 270° up to 90°, is the same as that around the back face, from 90° down to 270°.