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NFL Asks Columbia University For Help With Deflate-Gate

Posted by samzenpus on from the keeping-up-the-pressure dept.

An anonymous reader writes with news that the NFL has reached out for some help answering the questions raised by deflate-gate. "Yep, it's for real. The law firm representing the NFL (Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison) has reached out to Columbia University's department of physics to recruit an expert on 'gas physics' to help determine, as has been reported, the 'environmental impacts on inflated footballs.' This is one of those rare times when the jocks turn to the nerds, so fellow fans of molecules and momentum — climb out of that gym locker you were stuffed into — this is our moment. Stand tall. And do the wave....They want to talk to a physicist, I presume, to help determine if a drop in temperature — a slowing of the air molecules inside the football — can explain the low pressure that was found in some of the balls used in the A.F.C. championship game two weeks ago between the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts."

7 of 239 comments (clear)

  1. It's not the gas... by Jaime2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The problem with describing what happens when a ball cools isn't about the gas inside it; that's well understood. The problem is that the container is also affected by temperature and leather is a complicated material. The best answer here is to do a bunch of experiments, not a bunch of calculations.

    1. Re:It's not the gas... by Jaime2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So, I said that the behavior of gasses is well understood and you responded with the ideal gas law. Are you agreeing or disagreeing with me? If you are agreeing, then why post?

      Next you mentioned the the NFL has a bunch of experience with this. Yet, it is the NFL that is asking for help. Obviously they don't agree with you.

    2. Re:It's not the gas... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The NFL is not interested in a scientific answer. They are interested in an answer from a supposed authority which reaches a conclusion they agree with. The NFL can then take that answer and champion it as having been "verified by scientists!".

      The NFL wants this whole mess to go away. They do not want people thinking that the players and teams cheat because people will become less invested in a rigged game. And if that happens, the NFL makes less money.

      What the NFL is really asking is for some scientist to come forward with an explanation about how the Patriot's footballs can be slightly deflated while the other team's balls remained pert and bouncy. Whether the scientist involved provides a legitimate answer or not is inconsequential, so long as it sounds convincing.

      So, yeah, once again the jocks are trying to crib off the hard work of the nerds.

    3. Re:It's not the gas... by ember42 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Dry air is within 1 part in 1000 of the ideal gas law at near ambient pressure and temperature. I challenge you to detect this with portable instrumentation.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
      Unless the football is extremely elastic or is strongly adsorbent of gasses the ball properties wont matter much at all.
      The interesting question is do they use dry air? If they use ambient air, compressing it to ~13 psi will increase the dew point by ~10C / 18F. If the dew point is now above ambient, moisture will condense, which would lower the pressure much more than ideal gas law predicts.

  2. Deflate-gate? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Where do I go to complain about people sticking "-gate" onto the end of every scandal?

  3. yep. Columbia's to authoritatively say what we kno by raymorris · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Agreed. Anyone can put a football out in the cold, or in a refrigerator, and see what happens. Columbia's role is credibility, to authoratively say how much pressure drop is attributable to temperature.

  4. NFL is just looking for an excuse by frovingslosh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... to help determine if a drop in temperature — a slowing of the air molecules inside the football — can explain the low pressure ....

    The National Felons League (an organization of Billionaire Team Owners that is considered non-profit so that it pays no taxes) is just looking for an excuse here. The patriots were laughed at when they tried to pull the temperature excuse out of their ass, so they want a University to back up the "pressure goes down with temperature" excuse. They need to do this because even die hard Patriot fans are not buying the "a locker room attendant did this all on his own" story. And lets completely ignore why this supposed temperature drop affected only one teams footballs and not those provided by the other team, or why the problem was only observed when the opposition intercepted a ball and not by any of the Patriot players as they handled the balls.

    --
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