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posted by martyb on Sunday February 01 2015, @03:50AM   Printer-friendly
from the shrunken-balls dept.

While the New England Patriots have absorbed a beating in the press, with many scientists concluding that only the surreptitious hiss of air being released from their footballs could explain the loss of pressure making them easier to handle, James Glanz reports at the NYT that the first detailed, experimental data has concluded that most or all of the deflation could be explained by environmental effects.

[The NFL is investigating whether the New England Patriots intentionally deflated footballs during their victory over the Indianapolis Colts in Sunday's rain-soaked AFC Championship Game.]

“This analysis looks solid to me,” says Max Tegmark, a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who reviewed the paper. “To me, their measurements mean that there’s no evidence of foul play.” Some academic and research physicists now concede that they made a crucial error in their initial calculations, using an equation called the ideal gas law. But applying the equation to real situations can be surprisingly deceptive. When a gauge indicates that the ball contains 12.5 p.s.i. — the minimum allowed by the N.F.L. — the actual pressure is more than twice that amount because the surrounding pressure of the atmosphere must be considered. This roughly doubles how much a dip in temperature can lower the pressure. “I stand corrected,” says Tegman, “It’s pretty funny that the ideal gas law is making headlines."

Thomas Healy measured the pressure drop in 12 footballs when they were moved from a room at 75 degrees to one at 50 degrees (the approximate temperature on the field in the Colts game). In the experiment, the deflation of the footballs was close to the larger, correctly calculated value. When Healy moistened the balls to mimic the effects of the rainy weather that day, the pressure dropped even further, close to the deflation of 2 pounds per square inch that the N.F.L. is believed to have found. Healy, who is from the Boston area, conceded that he would be rooting for the Patriots — whether he gets tickets or not — but says engineers who were not Patriots fans had helped with the experiments. Healy says his interest was just in the science. “It’s bringing science to a really public light, especially when everybody is getting interested in the Super Bowl."

Non-USA readers may wish to refer to our earlier story about the Super Bowl which explains some of the terminology and background on the game.

 
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  • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday February 01 2015, @06:55AM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Sunday February 01 2015, @06:55AM (#140000) Journal

    Studying Physics as a career is only slightly more obscure and out of touch as studying philosophy or literature as a career.

    Whoa there, buddy! Some of us here on SN actually are philosophers, professionally. Not so sure about the literary people, given the general level of literacy, spelling, and understanding of nuance, inuendo, and irony. And sarcasm. But in any case, in this case we see how such obscure pursuits actually have application in the most important activities of American Society, throwing a pigskin. I wonder where all those football players I knew in high school are now. Actually, I don't. (And back in character, of course there was no such thing as American Football on Samos in the Third Century B.C., so this is not really a question, but we did have our analogs: Tong throwers, guys always playing with their discus, javelin throwers trying to stay out of the actual army. Amazing how some things never change. )

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by umafuckitt on Sunday February 01 2015, @10:37AM

    by umafuckitt (20) on Sunday February 01 2015, @10:37AM (#140012)

    Saying a profession is "obscure" doesn't have to mean it isn't important, it can also mean that it's not well understood. I didn't see anyone claiming physics wasn't important. I reckon Average Dude doesn't personally know a single professional physicist and would consider meeting one at a party to be pretty unusual. I'm a biologist and I met up with old school friends last week. They all work for companies doing mid-level management stuff and they weren't very interested in each other's jobs but they did seem genuinely curious about mine. So I would say, yes, I appear to have an unusualy (possibly obscure) profession.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 01 2015, @08:52PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 01 2015, @08:52PM (#140115)

      Thanks for understanding my point. It was rather surprising to see someone defending philosophy as a profession while not noticing the logical form and philosophical language.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 02 2015, @12:53AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 02 2015, @12:53AM (#140157)

        But your point is obscure and "out of touch", which is not enough to make it philosophical.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 02 2015, @01:42AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 02 2015, @01:42AM (#140169)

          You appear to be ignorant of what you claim knowledge of.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 02 2015, @04:20AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 02 2015, @04:20AM (#140204)

            Burma shave.

    • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday February 02 2015, @01:07PM

      by isostatic (365) on Monday February 02 2015, @01:07PM (#140277) Journal

      I reckon Average Dude doesn't personally know a single professional physicist and would consider meeting one at a party to be pretty unusual.

      I doubt the average dude would personally know a single professional (american) footballer and would consider meeting one at a party to be pretty unusual (there's 1,696 in the NFL).

      I wouldn't suggest that football was "obscure".

      In fact this page [ncaa.org] suggests that 1,696 new professional sportsmen are created each year, of which 23% are in the NFL (this is just the big popular US team games). Extrapolating that to the number in the NFL reaches a total of about 7,500 professional sportsmen, 15% of the number of professional physicists.