The Physics of Football

Timothy J. Gay

University of Nebraska - Lincoln

This talk is based on a series of one-minute physics lectures given to the ~ 9 x 10⁴ fans that attend the University of Nebraska home football games.  Lecture topics have included Newton’s Laws of Motion (blocking and tackling), the Ideal Gas Law (why not fill the football with helium to get better hangtime?), and projectile motion (kicking, punting, and passing).  Particular attention will be paid to the problem of the tight spiral pass: why does the axis of the ball, in this case, maintain tangency with its line of trajectory? If time permits, I will also discuss questions related to the tactical advantages of football deflation and the recent discovery by the American Public and Press that football is a violent game.

Superbowl LV will take place Sunday night, February 7 at 6:30 pm EST between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. If you want to impress your friends and family with your real knowledge of the game, watch Professor Timothy Gay's lecture on the "Physics of Football" on Wednesday, February 3 at 4 p.m. EST. He will make you stand out in the crowd of viewers. 

Short Bio: Professor Gay is regarded as one of the world's leading experts on the science of sports. His book, "The Physics of Football" contains a forward by his Andover classmate, Bill Belichick, the renowned Head Coach and General Manager of the New England Patriots, and is a compelling read for anyone who has a science bent. Last year, Gay and two of his collaborators cracked the mystery of how a football spirals, earning him recognition by both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The late Harry Soodak, a long-time member of the CCNY Physics Department, first raised the question three decades ago, but the answer remained unclear until last year.