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NFL Asks Columbia University For Help With Deflate-Gate
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."
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.
...why the other team's game balls remained properly inflated...given they were undergoing similar circumstances (weather, handling, use, etc).
Impetuous! Homeric!
Where do I go to complain about people sticking "-gate" onto the end of every scandal?
What? They're afraid MIT is full of Pats fans?
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.
The claim is that 11 out of the 12 footballs provided by New England were deflated AFTER they had been checked by the NFL officials.
A few hours before the game starts, the officials check the footballs provided by both teams to make sure they are properly inflated. (Proper inflation is between 12.5 and 13.5 PSI.)
The footballs are then held by the officials until prior to the game, where they are handed over to the equipment managers for each team to take to that team's sideline area.
Now, at halftime, the officials checked the pressure on the Patriot's footballs again. (This is not standard procedure, as in this is not done in every game.) 11 out of the 12 footballs were found to be under the required minimum pressure of 12.5 PSI. Depending on which report/news article you read, they were under-inflated by 1 to 2 PSI.
Weather conditions (lower temperature on the field compared to the room where the initial pressure check occurred) could lower the pressure of the footballs, but it apparently did not do so (at least to the same extend) for the Colts' footballs. Hence, the charge that someone (or more than one) in the Patriots' organization deliberately deflated the footballs.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Which he had to correct because he used gauge pressure in his calculation rather than absolute pressure.
If you're doing the Wave, you deserve to get stuffed back in that locker. Or worse.
As far as Deflate Gate goes, in the end it won't matter. The Hawks are going to walk all over the Pats. The only real question is whether they'll hit any of the numbers I drew in our office pool.
#DeleteChrome
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.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I may have been a nerd, but I was the one stuffing kids into the lockers!
Yes, precisely! You need experimental data to find the proper stacking method for maximizing kids of varying masses within a locker superstructure.
That's PV = nRT, you insensitive clod!
Leave momentum and differential acceleration out of this petty spat.
It didn't make any difference to the outcome of the game but it still persists. The NFL has rules governing the inflation... yada yada
1) It could have been the cold.
2) It could have been that New England knowingly under-inflated the footballs and played the first half of the game knowing it.
3) It could have been a mistake on New England's equipment folks, shit happens.
Chose one of three because it didn't make any difference in the outcome because once the officiating crew check them at half-time they detected it and changed the pressure. If there was a question to a violation of the rules it should have been brought out then by the refs, but they didn't do it and that's a bad problem here. Sure pressure can change, fuck the damn things can leak, it was the cold, an earthquake .. whatever the reason it's over and this countless going back and forth isn't going to change things but it may eventually give the NFL a scapegoat. Belichick is still in the dog house over the videotape episode because he didn't follow through with the punishment that Goodell metered out, he did it in spirit but not how it was agreed so ultimately he'll probably be suspended.
The NFL has to fix the situation moving forward. If it was cheating, weather conditions, bad equipment, whatever they need to fix it so it's no longer an issue.
1) The footballs for games should be considered the NFL's property and for the game they should be supplied, monitored and checked by the NFL. MLB for example doesn't let the teams play with baseballs that they bring to the game, the NFL should follow suit. No more teams bringing game balls.
2) It's questionable that the NFL needs 42 to 54 footballs per game. It needs to be brought down to a reasonable number 20 or under. If that means no more "momento" footballs touchdowns etc. then too bad. After the game the officials can divvy them up between the two teams so they can distribute them how they see fit.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Interrogator: Sir, you contend that you did not knowingly inflate those footballs with heated air?
Equipment Manager: Well, I didn't know it would be a problem. I always wondered why our air compressor was hooked up to the furnace.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
And we could display it real time during the game and catch any cheaters on the spot. Perhaps we could have a physic official throw a yellow flag when the pressure goes out of bounds and the opposing team could decline the penalty. We could get Bill Nye, the science guy to do the physics play by play. They could bet on the air pressure at the end of first half. We could interview anyone over their air pressure choice.
I don't really care about either team, but after everything I've read and seen, I think the ref checking the ball just squeezed them or checked a few and let the balls be approved. There is no list of pressures, and a former ball boy said they would not check every ball. This explains everything. If the ref did his job, checked every ball, logged it, and inflated them to specification, there would be no mystery. Either the ref is above scrutiny, or the league is just trying to cover up that their own procedures weren't followed. This is the biggest non-story I've ever heard about, and takes away from the teams, especially about the Seahawks back to back trips.
We all know where it originates from. Doesn't change the fact that sticking -gate onto the end of every scandal's name is utterly stupid.
It doesn't even make sense. It's not like the Watergate scandal had anything to do with water.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
I certainly managed to avoid hearing about it until this story on slashdot.
"...has reached out to Columbia University's department of physics..."
I bet they "called" or "emailed."
"Reached out to" is a complete yambag phrase that needs to GTFO immediately.
Talk normal, people.
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Rotate the pod, please, HAL....