The laws of physics worked in favor of the New England Patriots when a football spiraled into the arms of one of their players at the end of the Super Bowl. But those same laws could not save the Patriots from the conclusion that they almost certainly tampered with footballs — by improperly deflating them — to help the team win an earlier playoff game.
In a report commissioned by the National Football League and released Wednesday, a noted engineering firm and a Princeton physics professor concluded that an equation known as the Ideal Gas Law could not explain why the Patriots footballs were at such low pressures when they were measured at halftime of New England’s postseason victory over the Indianapolis Colts.
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The report punctured a key assertion of some physicists around the country who believed that the temperature difference between the locker room, where the balls were inflated, and the playing field could provide an innocent explanation for the pressure drop. However, the balls were taken back to the locker room at halftime, where they warmed up again before the measurement, the report said. Therefore, the report concluded, “the reduction in pressure of the Patriots’ game balls cannot be explained completely by basic scientific principles.”
