Investigators to consult Columbia Univ physicist

Dr Pain said:

This is the guy who flapped his gums without looking at it or doing an experiment http://physics.columbia.edu/people/profile/383

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Absouletly hilarious. They are using a guy that went on record saying that it was more likely tampering than weather.

Fix is in people.

Kraft better have his legal team all over this.

pork3 said:

The fix is in.
Of course they'll hire a physicist from a New York university.
And what if he says this is all hogwash without performing any experimentation?
The investigation will claim that any prior reports that proved the Patriots claim as true were misguided.

This is a clear and strategic attempt at disseminating misinformation to weaken the Patriots defence.

Well played Goodell, Well played.

-Jamman

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What's even more mind boggling is that a Physics professor from there went on record saying it was tampering not weather.

Consulting with actual scientists is a good thing. It's already been clearly established that the science backs up the simple fact that the ball will deflate upon dropping from 75 to 50 degrees. The only disagreement we've seen in the media is over how much deflation it can be responsible for, with some scientists incorrectly assuming that Belichick attributed a full 2psi drop to temperature alone.

Bottom line: any scientist who's worth anything will confirm that temperature drop accounts for a 1-1.5 drop in psi. So this is good news for us. Sure, that still leads 0.5-1psi unaccounted for if it's true that the balls came in at 2psi under, but that's much easier to explain than 2 full psi.

This basically will turn it into a discussion of "can some combination of prepping the ball and rain result in a further drop of 0.5-1psi"? We'll see what they decide.

BradyFTW! said:

Consulting with actual scientists is a good thing

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Even if that scientist or rather professor went on record saying it was tampering and not weather?

JMC00 said:

Even if that scientist or rather professor went on record saying it was tampering and not weather?

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We don't know that it's that specific scientist, and yes, it's still a good thing because I can only assume that this scientist is going to be asked "how much of a drop can temperature alone account for?" To which he or she will have to answer 1-1.5 psi, depending on the starting temperature.

All of these people saying that Belichick is full of **** are saying that because they didn't even read his argument. He never claimed that temperature alone accounted for 2psi.

JMC00 said:

Even if that scientist or rather professor went on record saying it was tampering and not weather?

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What better way to get the NFL to finally agree it was the weather if a physicist who believed it was tampering now believes the PSI naturally dropped due to weather conditions after studying/experimenting.

Scientists will try to do reproducible work. I'm not worried about what this guy said. He may not be the guy who does the work anyway.

The actual equation PV=nrT is something a high schooler could do. That yields about 1.2PSI or so. That much is pretty straigh forward. Although it brings up why the colts balls didn't depressurize as much. (They may have been colder).

Then there are additional variables; the rain, ball prep, the atmospheric pressure change etc. etc.

The real question is, how much were the balls underpressure? It's been confusing, first I heard 11psi, then I heard "2 psi under", but that MAY have been just taking 13 PSI - 11 PSI, with 13 as the "mid point" of allowable pressures. If it was about 1.5PSI, then it's explainable. It doesn't seem likely that they'd tamper with a ball to remove .3 PSI.

karguy85 said:

I guess I'm just concerned that a few seemingly credible physicists have so quickly dismissed that the notion that weather/ball prep can and will cause a loss of pressure. Shouldn't they know better. Dismissing it so rashly and being proven wrong is also a hit to ones credibility.

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Physicists are asked to make quick back of the envelope calculations and use their instinct all the time - they just know they aren't being held to them. When a scientist speaks definitely, it is via peer-reviewed journals, not newspapers. So I wouldn't hold these guys to passing remarks.

The only thing surprising is that they chose Columbia. Obviously it's a great institution, and it has a great physics department, I think its ranked top 15 - but the top ones are in their own category, i.e. MIT, Caltech, Stanford.

Dr Pain said:

I was typing my post while you posted. What is troubling is "
William Zajc, another Columbia physicist who was aware of the request by Reisner, said that he was tempted to field the questions because of all the flawed physics discussions he had seen in news media reports.

“I’m amused,” Zajc said of the query. But in the end, he said, “I didn’t do it.”

Zajc said he believed there was little chance that atmospheric effects alone could account for the discrepancies in the football pressure.

“I think it’s more likely than not that they were manipulated,” Zajc said."

Nothing like going into this without preconceptions

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I know Bill pretty well, and will give him a hard time about that when I see him the next time. They probably called him just because he was head of the Columbia physics department until last year. I have talked to journalists about science a number of times, and rarely been able to predict what the actual "quote" would look like.

The science/experiments to do are completely straightforward; I doubt very much that whoever volunteers at Columbia will screw that up. It's too easy to double-check by anybody with an NFL-spec football, pressure gauge, thermometer and stopwatch, IF the questions asked and input provided by the NFL are public. That may be a big if, however.

BradyManny said:

Physicists are asked to make quick back of the envelope calculations and use their instinct all the time - they just know they aren't being held to them. When a scientist speaks definitely, it is via peer-reviewed journals, not newspapers. So I wouldn't hold these guys to passing remarks.

The only thing surprising is that they chose Columbia. Obviously it's a great institution, and it has a great physics department, I think its ranked top 15 - but the top ones are in their own category, i.e. MIT, Caltech, Stanford.

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Us native Bostonians have connections to some pretty good universities, why don't we see if we can get doctoral students from MIT/Harvard to perform tests as well?

Why haven't other owners spoken up? This will be a dangerous road to go down if we get in trouble without actual evidence. Goodell has done it before though....

Notice that the Three Stooges at the NFL can't even line up a scientific expert at Columbia without leaking it, including verbatim transcripts of the e-mail.

hwc said:

Notice that the Three Stooges at the NFL can't even line up a scientific expert at Columbia without leaking it, including verbatim transcripts of the e-mail.

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And it gets leaked the same day that another Columbia Physics Professor says that the Patriots' explanation is baseless without giving one shred of evidence. Gotta love the NFL!

PBPF contacted the Columbia Professor about this and seems to have received a positive response. He will look at the HeadSmary video etc.. he said.

karguy85 said:

Us native Bostonians have connections to some pretty good universities, why don't we see if we can get doctoral students from MIT/Harvard to perform tests as well?

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So, 1 single Physicist will sway the NFL investigation? And why Columbia University?

If you do this, do this right:


- An independent panel of 3 scientists from different Universities/Institutions.
All must agree.
- Perform a number of "situational football temperature experiments mimicking
the temperature"
(Same as the video that everyone has been passing around in this thread). Gather the data.

Dr Pain said:

PBPF contacted the Columbia Professor about this and seems to have received a positive response. He will look at the HeadSmary video etc.. he said.

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@Palm Beach Pats Fan for the win again!

Might I add that the fact that the NFL is consulting a science department at a prestigious university at this point in the game adds to speculation that they have nothing AND either a) they assumed guilt from the onset and are only know considering alternatives b) they know piss-gate and is not convincing and want science to lay the hammer down on the Pats by ruling out non-human tampering. Re: b), I expect the NFL to find themselves woefully disappointed, as long as the Columbia folks do their job!

Columbia vs. MIT
Physics Department

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/f...s-prof-analyzes-deflategate-article-1.2095576

To paraphrase the 80’s singer Thomas Dolby, Patriots coach Bill Belichick didn't exactly blind anyone with his science skills last weekend when he attempted to defend his team in DeflateGate.

But with the NFL reportedly seeking help from none other than the Columbia University Physics Department for its investigation of the mysterious, deflated footballs in the AFC title game, one MIT physics professor says he simply can’t believe the league reached out to the junior varsity physics team for science tutoring.

“Personally, I'm a little bit miffed because MIT is the No. 1 department,” says David Pritchard, an MIT physics professor who joined the prestigious Boston school's faculty in 1970, with just a touch of sarcasm. “So if they really want top-quality advice, they ought to come here, don't you think?”

Pritchard says he’s pretty sure the NFL overlooked MIT because of its location — right in the heart of Patriot Nation.

“I decided maybe they thought some of us would be Patriots fans and so we might not be objective, which of course isn't true,” Pritchard says. “Since we have two rival football teams in New York City, I don't think Columbia qualifies very well either.”

On a more serious note, Pritchard says DeflateGate, in his opinion, “is a ridiculous charade,” and that he certainly hasn’t spent the past 10 days discussing it with any faculty colleagues. But since the NFL is asking science questions, Pritchard agreed to outline his tip sheet.

“The NFL, in my opinion, could go to Columbia Law School - they have a good law school - and learn something about American ideas of fairness,” says Pritchard. “Like, you don't accuse people before you have any proof.”

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AMEN!

karguy85 said:

Us native Bostonians have connections to some pretty good universities, why don't we see if we can get doctoral students from MIT/Harvard to perform tests as well?

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I'll check tomorrow if anyone in the MIT physics department is already working on this. If not, I'll see if I can borrow some footballs, gauges, pumps from the football coach.