Then it struck me (for I am getting a little slower every year), that by re-inflating the balls at the half, what Kensil was ACTUALLY doing was destroying the proof of the Pats INNOCENCE. If it was true that the balls were only marginally deflated, if at all, Kensil's sting and his biased agenda becomes exposed. By just saying he re-inflated then, he not only destroys the only way the Pats could have conclusively proved their innocence, he is free to imply that the ball needed to be inflated and the Pats had done something.....and there is no way for the Pats conclusively prove otherwise, as the evidence has been essentially destroyed
Kensil doesn't need to have the Pats found guilty to win. He just needs the possibility of wrong doing to taint the Pats irreparably. and by destroying the evidence he succeeded...
Ken,
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
I don't know who originally said that, but words to live by...
I believe the ignorance is the ubiquitous, wrong belief that a football's internal pressure is independent of temperature. That, if it is filled to 13 psi before the game, it will remain at 13 psi regardless of temperature, unless it springs a leak.
This alone would prohibit the Colts from executing any sort of plot to over-inflate their balls & have the Pats balls show underinflated. Besides, they are ONLY going to inflate them to whatever pressure Luck wants them.
One REALLY interesting thing is that IF the story that they re-inflated them is true then, as a DIRECT RESULT of this intervention, the Pats played with balls that were SIGNIFICANTLY over inflated throughout the second half.
"Over inflated, compared to every other football ever used under similar circumstances", that is.
It's a little convoluted, but easy to figure out by how much they were over inflated.
Here's the calc:
The reason that they were overinflated is that most (~90%) of the air inside the football was at about 50F. The pressure inside a "normally inflated, legally inflated" football, when the air inside is 50F SHOULD BE around 11 psi. The referees brought the pressure up to a minimum of 12.5 psi (if they acquiesced to Brady's preference) or around 13.0 psi (if they did not acquiesce to Brady's preference), while the air inside the football was only slightly warmed by the addition of a small amount of warmer air. Let's estimate the final temperature & the EQUIVALENT pressurization state of the balls after they were re-inflated at half-time.
We will ignore heating of the introduced air from adiabatic compression.
The pressure & temperature state of the internal air prior to repressurization was: {11.2 psig @ 50°F}
A very close approximation for the final temp can be estimated by simply “proportioning by pressure" the amount of air in the ball at each temperature.
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The Numbers:
If the refs set the balls at halftime to 12.5 psig:
The final ball pressure will be 12.5 psig = 27.2 psia
The pressure of the air at 50°F = 11.2 psig = 25.7 psia
The percent of air at 50°F in the re-inflated ball will be 25.7 psia/27.2 psia = 95%
The percent of air at 75°F in the re-inflated ball will be 100% - 95% = 5%
The final temp of the re-inflated ball will be very close to .95*(50+460) + 0.05*(75+460) = 511.3°R = 51.3°F.
By our previous calculations, the EQUIVALENT ROOM TEMP PRESSURIZATION of this ball was:
P1 = P2 * (T1/T2) = (12.5+14.7) psia * (75+460)°R / (51.3+460)°R = 28.5 psia = 13.8 psig.
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If the refs set the balls at halftime to 13.0 psig:
The final ball pressure will be 13.0 psig = 27.7 psia
The pressure of the air at 50°F = 11.2 psig = 25.7 psia
The percent of air at 50°F in the re-inflated ball will be 25.7 psia/27.7 psia = 93%
The percent of air at 75°F in the re-inflated ball will be 100% - 93% = 7%
The final temp of the re-inflated ball will be very close to .93*(50+460) + 0.07*(75+460) = 511.7°R = 51.7°F.
By our previous calculations, the EQUIVALENT ROOM TEMP PRESSURIZATION of this ball was:
P1 = P2 * (T1/T2) = (13.0+14.7) psia * (75+460)°R / (51.7+460)°R = 29.0 psia = 14.3 psig.
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The balls were reset at halftime to an EQUIVALENT pressure (i.e., had they been inflated at 75°F room temperature) of 13.8 to 14.3 psig (depending on the ref’s choice of set point). This occurred purely because most of the air inside the balls was very cold.
These balls were between 0.3 & 0.8 psi OVER the NFL specified upper limit (13.5 psi).
These balls were between 0.8 & 1.3 psi OVER the NFL nominal pressure (13.0 psi).
These balls were between 1.3 & 1.8 psi OVER the pressure that Brady prefers (12.5 psi)..
Yet, throughout the second half of the game, Brady threw these over-inflated balls just fine, and the receivers caught these over-inflated balls just fine.!!
So much for the "under-inflated balls are easier to throw & catch" nonsense.
