I got a comment from someone asking about Eli Manning's Hail Mary at the end of the first half of the Giants' divisional playoff game against the Packers on 15 January 2012. I had not modeled that pass, so I thank the person who left the comment for the suggestion.
Manning let fly his pass from the right hash mark at the Packers' 43-yard line. Hakeem Nicks caught the ball about 5 yards deep in the end zone. Nicks appears to have caught the ball about 20 yards to the left of the line of right hash marks. In other words, the ball went 48 yards straight and 20 yards left, leading to a horizontal range of 52 yards (Pythagorean Theorem!). After five timings of the flight time, I got a time of flight of 3.048 s.
Throwing the aforementioned numbers into my computer, I got a launch angle of 42.5 degrees and a launch speed of about 51.3 mph (82.6 km/hr). The maximum height reached above Lambeau Field was around 14.5 yards (13.3 m).
Manning did not have to throw the ball as far as Brady did at the end of the Super Bowl. Manning's pass was thrown about 88% of the speed of Brady's and at a slightly smaller angle. Brady's pass went about 5 yards higher, too. Credit Eli Manning for a great pass, but give equal credit to Hakeem Nicks for making a phenomenal catch. The Giants went into the locker room up 20-10 instead of 13-10. The play to end the half was a game-changer for sure!
08 February 2012
07 February 2012
Two Plays to Decide Super Bowl XLVI
After studying Brady's final pass, I analyzed two more plays that helped decide Super Bowl XLVI. Click here for the link to the article in YAHOO! SPORTS by Kristian Dyer.
06 February 2012
Tom Brady's Hail Mary
I was one of the estimated 111 million people to watch the Super Bowl last night. That's a lot of people watching a football game, though still an order of magnitude less than the number of people that watch the FIFA World Cup every four years. Still, the Super Bowl is the biggest game of the year in the US. It was a great game that came down to a Hail Mary from future Hall-of-Fame New England quarterback Tom Brady.
Like everyone else, I held my breath while the ball was in the air. I later analyzed the throw because I was curious how well Brady had thrown the pass. Watching the replay over and over, I averaged five timings of the ball's flight time and got 3.474 seconds. Brady appeared to let go of the ball at the New England 42-yard line; the ball was first touched about 6 yards deep in the end zone. That means that the horizontal range of the ball was about 64 yards (58.5 meters). Solving the equation of motion from Newton's second law, which includes air resistance, I found that Brady released the ball with a speed of 58.4 mph (94.0 km/hr) at an angle of about 45.3 degrees from the horizontal. The ball reached a maximum height of roughly 19.5 yards (17.8 meters) above the turf.
It was a great pass, and it needed a lot of luck to be completed. After being tipped, New England tight end Rob Gronkowski dove for the ball and looked to have a change to catch it. But, alas, even at 6' 6" (1.98 meters) tall, Gronkowski was too late getting to the ball. Once the ball was tipped, it began accelerating to the turf at 32 feet per second per second (9.8 meters per second per second), which is about 22 mph per second. Gronkowski simply had too much distance to cover while the ball was making its way to the turf and giving the Giants their fourth Super Bowl win.
See Chapter 3 of my book, which focuses on Doug Flutie's famous Boston College pass to beat Miami in 1984, for more details on modeling the flight of a Hail Mary pass in football.
Like everyone else, I held my breath while the ball was in the air. I later analyzed the throw because I was curious how well Brady had thrown the pass. Watching the replay over and over, I averaged five timings of the ball's flight time and got 3.474 seconds. Brady appeared to let go of the ball at the New England 42-yard line; the ball was first touched about 6 yards deep in the end zone. That means that the horizontal range of the ball was about 64 yards (58.5 meters). Solving the equation of motion from Newton's second law, which includes air resistance, I found that Brady released the ball with a speed of 58.4 mph (94.0 km/hr) at an angle of about 45.3 degrees from the horizontal. The ball reached a maximum height of roughly 19.5 yards (17.8 meters) above the turf.
It was a great pass, and it needed a lot of luck to be completed. After being tipped, New England tight end Rob Gronkowski dove for the ball and looked to have a change to catch it. But, alas, even at 6' 6" (1.98 meters) tall, Gronkowski was too late getting to the ball. Once the ball was tipped, it began accelerating to the turf at 32 feet per second per second (9.8 meters per second per second), which is about 22 mph per second. Gronkowski simply had too much distance to cover while the ball was making its way to the turf and giving the Giants their fourth Super Bowl win.
See Chapter 3 of my book, which focuses on Doug Flutie's famous Boston College pass to beat Miami in 1984, for more details on modeling the flight of a Hail Mary pass in football.
30 January 2012
Tennis Balls and Kinetic Energy
In the first volume of The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Richard Feynman writes, "It is important to realize that in physics today, we no knowledge of what energy is." Though that quote comes from a book published in 1963, we are in no better position today, nearly a half century later, of knowing what energy actually is. We use energy concepts all the time to calculate all kinds of wonderful things about nature. We have all sorts of conceptual ideas of how to understand the application of equations for energy, but, like Feynman wrote, we really don't know what energy is.
Just this morning, I derived the "work-energy theorem" in my Classical Mechanics course, a derivation that always leaves a chill on my spine. In short, that theorem states that the net work done on an object equals the object's kinetic energy change. The net work done is independent of the path taken to get from starting point to ending point, and the notion of kinetic energy, or energy of motion, allows for the use of scalars instead of pesky vectors like force and displacement. The kinetic energy is ½mv2, where m is an object's mass and v is its speed measured in some reference frame. The beauty of the derivation is that kinetic energy is not assumed at the start. We simply evaluate the work integral for the net force and out pops this thing ½mv2 that must be evaluated at the starting and ending points. Only then do we call that thing "kinetic energy."
While watching yesterday's Australian Open men's final, I saw serves reaching speeds around 110 mph (177 km/hr or 49 m/s). Given that a tennis ball weighs about two ounces, its mass is therefore about 56.7 grams (or 3.9 millislug, if you really want to use those units!). Using SI units, a served tennis ball's kinetic energy is thus around 68.5 joules (0.016 nutritional calories or 0.065 Btu or 50.6 ft-lbs). Of course, the ball's speed goes down on its way to the other side of the court because of air resistance, but something like 70 joules is a reasonable kinetic energy for a professionally-served tennis ball.
Now, think about what speeds some other sports balls would need to have in order to have a kinetic energy of 68.5 joules. To keep things simple, assume all balls, including our tennis ball, have no spin. Including spin is not hard, but I'll save a discussion of rotational kinetic energy for another blog post. A 5-ounce (142 grams) baseball needs to travel 69.6 mph (112 km/hr or 31.1 m/s), whereas a 440-gram (0.97 pounds) Jabulani football needs to travel 39.5 mph (63.5 km/hr or 17.7 m/s). A teenage boy can throw a baseball 70 mph and a teenage girl can kick a Jabulani football 40 mph.
The lesson here is that some kinetic energies are easier to achieve than others. Of course, if your technique is good enough to launch a tennis serve at professional speeds, you still have to be able to control it!
Just this morning, I derived the "work-energy theorem" in my Classical Mechanics course, a derivation that always leaves a chill on my spine. In short, that theorem states that the net work done on an object equals the object's kinetic energy change. The net work done is independent of the path taken to get from starting point to ending point, and the notion of kinetic energy, or energy of motion, allows for the use of scalars instead of pesky vectors like force and displacement. The kinetic energy is ½mv2, where m is an object's mass and v is its speed measured in some reference frame. The beauty of the derivation is that kinetic energy is not assumed at the start. We simply evaluate the work integral for the net force and out pops this thing ½mv2 that must be evaluated at the starting and ending points. Only then do we call that thing "kinetic energy."
While watching yesterday's Australian Open men's final, I saw serves reaching speeds around 110 mph (177 km/hr or 49 m/s). Given that a tennis ball weighs about two ounces, its mass is therefore about 56.7 grams (or 3.9 millislug, if you really want to use those units!). Using SI units, a served tennis ball's kinetic energy is thus around 68.5 joules (0.016 nutritional calories or 0.065 Btu or 50.6 ft-lbs). Of course, the ball's speed goes down on its way to the other side of the court because of air resistance, but something like 70 joules is a reasonable kinetic energy for a professionally-served tennis ball.
Now, think about what speeds some other sports balls would need to have in order to have a kinetic energy of 68.5 joules. To keep things simple, assume all balls, including our tennis ball, have no spin. Including spin is not hard, but I'll save a discussion of rotational kinetic energy for another blog post. A 5-ounce (142 grams) baseball needs to travel 69.6 mph (112 km/hr or 31.1 m/s), whereas a 440-gram (0.97 pounds) Jabulani football needs to travel 39.5 mph (63.5 km/hr or 17.7 m/s). A teenage boy can throw a baseball 70 mph and a teenage girl can kick a Jabulani football 40 mph.
The lesson here is that some kinetic energies are easier to achieve than others. Of course, if your technique is good enough to launch a tennis serve at professional speeds, you still have to be able to control it!
29 January 2012
Six Hours of GREAT Tennis!
Okay, my title exaggerates by seven minutes the length of the Australian Open men's final. But, Novak Djokovic's victory over Rafael Nadal is something I'll never forget. What an epic match! Djokovic and Nadal probably showed us the limits of what human beings can do on a tennis court. When Djokovic broke Nadal in the 11th game of the 5th set, one had to think that Nadal was finished. Nadal managed a break point in the 12th game, but Djokovic was not to be denied. It was painful to see one of those men lose; Nadal was only second by the slightest of margins. I am in awe after seeing the longest Grand Slam final. Serbia will be celebrating for sure!
I regret not seeing Victoria Azarenka's title win over Maria Sharapova. Though not as competitive a final as the men's final, I congratulate Azarenka for taking over the #1 spot in women's tennis. Belarus has quite a star!
Australia gave us an amazing fortnight of tennis. Let's hope Paris will be just as thrilling!
Look for another tennis post tomorrow. The energetics of the ball fascinate me.
I regret not seeing Victoria Azarenka's title win over Maria Sharapova. Though not as competitive a final as the men's final, I congratulate Azarenka for taking over the #1 spot in women's tennis. Belarus has quite a star!
Australia gave us an amazing fortnight of tennis. Let's hope Paris will be just as thrilling!
Look for another tennis post tomorrow. The energetics of the ball fascinate me.
16 January 2012
Rafael Nadal and Newton's Third Law
I caught a glimpse of Rafael Nadal's opening match against Alex Kuznetsov. The world's #2-ranked men's tennis player easily dispatched Kuznetsov in straight sets, thus kicking off Nadal's efforts to win a second Australian Open.
Newton's laws have been on my mind of late, and watching a tennis ball in flight brought the third law to the front of my mind. One must employ Newton's second law if one wishes to model the trajectory of a tennis ball in flight. Instead of thinking about that, I thought of the remarkable subtleties in Newton's third law. Two objects exert forces on each other of equal magnitudes and opposite directions. Some refer to this idea as "action/reaction," but I can't stand those terms. When I hear "action/reaction," I think that one force is the "action," and then the other force comes along a little later as the "reaction." That's not what happens! One object exerts a force on another object at exactly the same time as the second object exerts a force on the first object. One force does not precede the other.
The third law also tells us that forces, much like the Sith in Star Wars, come only in pairs. There is no such thing as an isolated force. Because the idea of a force requires two objects, Newton's third law pairs never appear on the same object. Think about Nadal's powerful serve. After the ball leaves his racket, and before it reaches the court's surface on the other side of the net, there are two forces on the ball. One comes from the air (drag, Magnus, and buoyant forces are all air forces); the other comes from the Earth (gravity). The third-law pair to the former force is a force on the air from the ball; the third-law pair to the latter force is a force on the Earth from the ball. Think about that. The ball exerts a force on the Earth of exactly the same magnitude that the Earth exerts a force on the ball! Further, the ball pulls the Earth up while the Earth pulls the ball down. That's true whether the ball is in flight or in Nadal's pocket. Many people new to physics often have trouble with this idea. Take the tennis ball's mass to be 58 grams. That's a tad more than 2 ounces or almost 0.57 newtons.
So, do you believe that a tennis ball pulls up on the Earth with 2 ounces or 0.57 newtons of force? To believe it, one may need to think about Newton's second law. Sure, the tennis ball and Earth exert equal and opposite forces on each other, but we see only the effect of the Earth's force on the ball. We don't see the Earth move! That's because the Earth has a mass that is 100 trillion trillion times that of a tennis ball. Drop a tennis ball, and it accelerates to the ground at about 9.8 meters per second per second (that's about 22 mph each second). That acceleration is due to the Earth pulling on the ball with 2 ounces or 0.57 newtons of force. The Earth hardly notices that same magnitude of force on it from the ball. It's upward acceleration is 100 trillion trillion times smaller than that of the tennis ball. Drop a tennis ball from a height of about 1 meter (a little more than 3 feet). It takes about 0.45 seconds for the ball to hit the ground. In that time, the Earth moves only about one trillion trillionth of a centimeter, which is 16 orders of magnitude smaller than the width of a hydrogen atom! Suffice to say, the Earth couldn't care less that a tennis ball is pulling on it with 2 ounces of force!
Newton's laws have been on my mind of late, and watching a tennis ball in flight brought the third law to the front of my mind. One must employ Newton's second law if one wishes to model the trajectory of a tennis ball in flight. Instead of thinking about that, I thought of the remarkable subtleties in Newton's third law. Two objects exert forces on each other of equal magnitudes and opposite directions. Some refer to this idea as "action/reaction," but I can't stand those terms. When I hear "action/reaction," I think that one force is the "action," and then the other force comes along a little later as the "reaction." That's not what happens! One object exerts a force on another object at exactly the same time as the second object exerts a force on the first object. One force does not precede the other.
The third law also tells us that forces, much like the Sith in Star Wars, come only in pairs. There is no such thing as an isolated force. Because the idea of a force requires two objects, Newton's third law pairs never appear on the same object. Think about Nadal's powerful serve. After the ball leaves his racket, and before it reaches the court's surface on the other side of the net, there are two forces on the ball. One comes from the air (drag, Magnus, and buoyant forces are all air forces); the other comes from the Earth (gravity). The third-law pair to the former force is a force on the air from the ball; the third-law pair to the latter force is a force on the Earth from the ball. Think about that. The ball exerts a force on the Earth of exactly the same magnitude that the Earth exerts a force on the ball! Further, the ball pulls the Earth up while the Earth pulls the ball down. That's true whether the ball is in flight or in Nadal's pocket. Many people new to physics often have trouble with this idea. Take the tennis ball's mass to be 58 grams. That's a tad more than 2 ounces or almost 0.57 newtons.
So, do you believe that a tennis ball pulls up on the Earth with 2 ounces or 0.57 newtons of force? To believe it, one may need to think about Newton's second law. Sure, the tennis ball and Earth exert equal and opposite forces on each other, but we see only the effect of the Earth's force on the ball. We don't see the Earth move! That's because the Earth has a mass that is 100 trillion trillion times that of a tennis ball. Drop a tennis ball, and it accelerates to the ground at about 9.8 meters per second per second (that's about 22 mph each second). That acceleration is due to the Earth pulling on the ball with 2 ounces or 0.57 newtons of force. The Earth hardly notices that same magnitude of force on it from the ball. It's upward acceleration is 100 trillion trillion times smaller than that of the tennis ball. Drop a tennis ball from a height of about 1 meter (a little more than 3 feet). It takes about 0.45 seconds for the ball to hit the ground. In that time, the Earth moves only about one trillion trillionth of a centimeter, which is 16 orders of magnitude smaller than the width of a hydrogen atom! Suffice to say, the Earth couldn't care less that a tennis ball is pulling on it with 2 ounces of force!
11 January 2012
Steven Gerrard and Newton's Second Law
Liverpool beat Manchester City by the score of 1-0. The lone goal for the Reds came via penalty kick in the 13th minute by Steven Gerrard. Liverpool is but a game away from Wembley Stadium! I mentioned Gerrard in an article I was invited to write for Physics Today that came out during the 2010 World Cup. Click here for that short, general audience article (click here for the same article in Japanese). Gerrard got his penalty kick just past Manchester City goal-keeper Joe Hart; the ball sneaked into the lower left portion of the goal.
Newton's second law popped into my head when I saw Gerrard's kick. An object's mass multiplied by its acceleration is equal to the net, external force acting on the object. As an equation, we might write that as ma = F. Note that I do not write F = ma, which I choose not to do for pedagogical reasons. As simple as that equation appears to be, it is quite subtle to work with upon meeting it the first time. I actually wrote a general audience paper on why I write Newton's second law equation backward from what is conventional. Click here for that article. When I teach that equation to my students, I want to them to be aware that there is no force ma acting on the object. I've lost count of the number of free-body diagrams that I've seen with ma forces acting on objects!
All the forces acting on an object with mass m are added as vectors and put on the side of the equation where F sits. To analyze the motion of an association football, take the football's mass to be m, and note that a is the acceleration of the ball's center of mass. A study of the ball's motion about its center of mass requires Newton's second law for rotations, which I won't discuss right now. What Aristotle did not understand, and what made Newton famous, is that once the football left Gerrard's boot, Gerrard's influence on the ball came to an end. The air (drag, Magnus, and buoyant forces are portions of the air's influence on the ball), Earth (gravity), and ground (also Earth, but I'm thinking grass now) act on the ball as it rolls toward the goal. Gerrard could do nothing to influence the ball's motion once the ball left his boot!
Newton's genius was recognizing that a (nonzero) net, external force is required to change an object's velocity. Aristotelian thinking leads to the belief that a (nonzero) net, external force is required to maintain an object's velocity. That is not true! An object may have many external forces on it and still move at a constant velocity, as long as all those external forces add (as vectors!) to zero. The beauty of Newton's second law equation is that there is an a on the ma side of the equation, not a v.
Note that once the ball left Gerrard's boot, it had to slow down. There was no force in the direction of motion to speed it up. There are, however, interesting things that happen with the drag force as the ball passes through what's called the "drag crisis," but I'll save that discussion for later! For now, congratulations to Steven Gerrard and Liverpool. Congratulations, too, to Isaac Newton for giving us a wonderful way to think about how the sports world works. This year we celebrate 325 years since Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (or Principia for short) was published.
Newton's second law popped into my head when I saw Gerrard's kick. An object's mass multiplied by its acceleration is equal to the net, external force acting on the object. As an equation, we might write that as ma = F. Note that I do not write F = ma, which I choose not to do for pedagogical reasons. As simple as that equation appears to be, it is quite subtle to work with upon meeting it the first time. I actually wrote a general audience paper on why I write Newton's second law equation backward from what is conventional. Click here for that article. When I teach that equation to my students, I want to them to be aware that there is no force ma acting on the object. I've lost count of the number of free-body diagrams that I've seen with ma forces acting on objects!
All the forces acting on an object with mass m are added as vectors and put on the side of the equation where F sits. To analyze the motion of an association football, take the football's mass to be m, and note that a is the acceleration of the ball's center of mass. A study of the ball's motion about its center of mass requires Newton's second law for rotations, which I won't discuss right now. What Aristotle did not understand, and what made Newton famous, is that once the football left Gerrard's boot, Gerrard's influence on the ball came to an end. The air (drag, Magnus, and buoyant forces are portions of the air's influence on the ball), Earth (gravity), and ground (also Earth, but I'm thinking grass now) act on the ball as it rolls toward the goal. Gerrard could do nothing to influence the ball's motion once the ball left his boot!
Newton's genius was recognizing that a (nonzero) net, external force is required to change an object's velocity. Aristotelian thinking leads to the belief that a (nonzero) net, external force is required to maintain an object's velocity. That is not true! An object may have many external forces on it and still move at a constant velocity, as long as all those external forces add (as vectors!) to zero. The beauty of Newton's second law equation is that there is an a on the ma side of the equation, not a v.
Note that once the ball left Gerrard's boot, it had to slow down. There was no force in the direction of motion to speed it up. There are, however, interesting things that happen with the drag force as the ball passes through what's called the "drag crisis," but I'll save that discussion for later! For now, congratulations to Steven Gerrard and Liverpool. Congratulations, too, to Isaac Newton for giving us a wonderful way to think about how the sports world works. This year we celebrate 325 years since Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (or Principia for short) was published.
10 January 2012
Alabama and Newton's First Law
Congratulations to the University of Alabama for winning the national championship in college football. I sat in awe last night as I watched the most dominating defensive performance I've ever seen on a college football field. To do what Alabama did to an LSU team with such an impressive season is truly remarkable. Alabama most certainly deserves its championship.
Watching Alabama's defenders reminded me of Newton's first law, which we apply quite well to the sporting world. An object in motion with a constant velocity, a velocity that could have zero magnitude, will remain that way unless acted upon by a net external force. A beautiful statement, right?!? Any sporting event provides a setting to think of Newton's laws, but I was struck last night by how many times LSU was thwarted on offense. Click here for the box score of last night's game. LSU had 92 yards of total offense, 39 of which came on the ground. So many times, LSU runners were smacked with the reality of Newton's first law. Just as they reached a constant velocity, a large, external Alabama force met them in a direction opposite their velocity. Sometimes, that large, external Alabama force reached the LSU runner before he even achieved top speed (because the runner is accelerating just before being hit in this case, Newton's first law is not applicable).
I could obviously use any play from last night's game to talk about all three of Newton's laws. Instead, I chose to think fondly of the first law each time an LSU runner got smacked with a large, external Alabama force. Newton's first law can be quite subtle when we first meet it. I'm always amused when I watch a science fiction movie that has a ship in deep space with engines ablaze. Hey, if the ship is going a tenth the speed of light, it'll keep doing so unless acted up by a net external force, right? No need to waste fuel by accelerating closer and closer to the speed of light! Each Alabama smack down on an LSU runner reminded me that Aristotle had it wrong, and Newton had it right.
Watching Alabama's defenders reminded me of Newton's first law, which we apply quite well to the sporting world. An object in motion with a constant velocity, a velocity that could have zero magnitude, will remain that way unless acted upon by a net external force. A beautiful statement, right?!? Any sporting event provides a setting to think of Newton's laws, but I was struck last night by how many times LSU was thwarted on offense. Click here for the box score of last night's game. LSU had 92 yards of total offense, 39 of which came on the ground. So many times, LSU runners were smacked with the reality of Newton's first law. Just as they reached a constant velocity, a large, external Alabama force met them in a direction opposite their velocity. Sometimes, that large, external Alabama force reached the LSU runner before he even achieved top speed (because the runner is accelerating just before being hit in this case, Newton's first law is not applicable).
I could obviously use any play from last night's game to talk about all three of Newton's laws. Instead, I chose to think fondly of the first law each time an LSU runner got smacked with a large, external Alabama force. Newton's first law can be quite subtle when we first meet it. I'm always amused when I watch a science fiction movie that has a ship in deep space with engines ablaze. Hey, if the ship is going a tenth the speed of light, it'll keep doing so unless acted up by a net external force, right? No need to waste fuel by accelerating closer and closer to the speed of light! Each Alabama smack down on an LSU runner reminded me that Aristotle had it wrong, and Newton had it right.
30 December 2011
The Anti-Title Game
Did you see last night's Baylor win over Washington in the Valero Alamo Bowl? Click here for the box score. Some may hate an LSU/Alabama game for its lack of offense. Last night's Washington/Baylor game was the antithesis of an LSU/Alabama game. Maybe it was more fun, but after awhile the game just got silly. I actually wondered if it would have mattered if I had suited up and played corner for Baylor or linebacker for Washington?
Imagine the following. You go up to Steve Sarkisian, Washington's head coach, before the game and offer him a deal. You ask him if he would like to play the game or take the scenario described next. Washington will amass 620 yards of total offense, go 9 for 16 on 3rd-down conversions and 3 for 4 on 4th-down conversions, commit just one penalty to Baylor's eight penalties, and score 56 points in a regulation game. Do Sarkisian's eyes bug out while he takes the scenario and gambles that what I described would win the game?
If Sarkisian takes the nutty scenario, you then have to tell him that his team lost by 11 points and that Baylor had 157 yards more offense! That's right, 123 total points and 1397 yards in total offense in a regulation game -- a tad better than a safety per minute in scoring and nearly 80% of a mile in total offense. Can you even do that in a video game?
17 December 2011
A BCS Fix
I love college sports, especially football and basketball. Taking degrees from Vanderbilt and Indiana gave me the opportunity to experience some fantastic basketball moments. My first year at Vandy was Barry Goheen's senior year. What a shot to beat Georgia that year! My first year at Indiana was Calbert Cheaney's senior year and Bob Knight's last truly great team (if not for Alan Henderson's knee, we win the title in 1993).
College football was not stressed as much as basketball at my schools, but I loved watching SEC and Big Ten teams play my schools. We actually beat Florida in my freshman year -- our 3rd and final win of the year. I saw Penn State's great 1994 team play at Indiana (Ki-Jana Carter ran for 192 yards that day -- 80 on his last carry). In my last year at Indiana, I saw Ron Dayne run all over us (130 yards in beating us 24-20) the year before his Heisman Trophy season.
As much as I love college football, I'm bothered by the way the champion is determined -- and I'm not alone! There are cries for a playoff, or, at the very least, a "plus one" to determine the champion. What is the purpose of a playoff? Does it determine the year's best team, or the best team at the end of the year? Nobody will argue with the fact that LSU had the best season this year. No other team is in the discussion. Why not call LSU the champion this year?
We don't call LSU the champion because not every year sees just one team as the regular-season standout. Last year, Auburn and Oregon both had a claim for the top spot, and it's really unfair of me to leave TCU out of the discussion. Because we usually don't get a single team that's a clear regular-season winner, we need a bowl game or playoff to decide the champion on the field.
A "plus one" idea does not work for me. Four teams as national semifinalists are not enough. Each team picked is just one win from the title game. My question is this: who gets the #4 slot this year if we had a "plus one" system? There is debate this year over who plays LSU for the title, but that debate has been limited to two teams (Alabama and Oklahoma State).
Imagine if we had a "plus one" in which the four semifinalists were chosen before the bowls (some have the idea of choosing two teams after the bowls, but that seems strange to me -- more on that in a moment). LSU, Alabama, and Oklahoma State get the top three spots. For the #4 spot, do we pick the BCS #4 Stanford? Oregon will have a good argument as Pac-12 champs (and 23-point victory over Stanford) for a spot ahead of Stanford. Arkansas (better two losses than Oregon's two losses), Boise State (one loss by one point to BCS #18 TCU), and Kansas State (two losses in this year's best conference) have cases, too. Even Big Ten champ Wisconsin and one-loss Houston might make noise, though their cases are not as good. One team (Oklahoma State) feels like it got left out of the title game. Imagine the complaining if we had a "plus one" system this year.
I mentioned picking two teams after the bowls as a strange way to do a "plus one" system. Why? What if Alabama beats LSU in a close game? Do voters pick those two teams to play a THIRD time? If LSU wins, and Oregon and Stanford win their bowl games, who plays LSU in the "plus one after the bowls" system?
For a playoff, four teams are not enough. Picking four means picking teams that are one win away from the title game. There are more than four teams that have cases this year for the four slots (and probably in most other years, too). With eight teams, there is no worry of leaving out the best team, even if there is an argument for the last slot. Sixteen is too many for 120 schools playing 12-13 games. With eight teams, a title-game school will have to play three playoff games, about the length of a quarter of the regular season. Use the BCS, or some other system, to seed eight teams in the four big bowls. Play the other bowls as usual. As a Vandy alum, I'm happy that my 6-6 team gets to play in the Liberty Bowl this year. Once the bowls are done, we have a Final Four in college football. Little schools and schools with no big football aspirations (like my school) are happy with their little bowls; football powers decide the champ on the field; and, money would flow with a Final Four and three more games.
College football was not stressed as much as basketball at my schools, but I loved watching SEC and Big Ten teams play my schools. We actually beat Florida in my freshman year -- our 3rd and final win of the year. I saw Penn State's great 1994 team play at Indiana (Ki-Jana Carter ran for 192 yards that day -- 80 on his last carry). In my last year at Indiana, I saw Ron Dayne run all over us (130 yards in beating us 24-20) the year before his Heisman Trophy season.
As much as I love college football, I'm bothered by the way the champion is determined -- and I'm not alone! There are cries for a playoff, or, at the very least, a "plus one" to determine the champion. What is the purpose of a playoff? Does it determine the year's best team, or the best team at the end of the year? Nobody will argue with the fact that LSU had the best season this year. No other team is in the discussion. Why not call LSU the champion this year?
We don't call LSU the champion because not every year sees just one team as the regular-season standout. Last year, Auburn and Oregon both had a claim for the top spot, and it's really unfair of me to leave TCU out of the discussion. Because we usually don't get a single team that's a clear regular-season winner, we need a bowl game or playoff to decide the champion on the field.
A "plus one" idea does not work for me. Four teams as national semifinalists are not enough. Each team picked is just one win from the title game. My question is this: who gets the #4 slot this year if we had a "plus one" system? There is debate this year over who plays LSU for the title, but that debate has been limited to two teams (Alabama and Oklahoma State).
Imagine if we had a "plus one" in which the four semifinalists were chosen before the bowls (some have the idea of choosing two teams after the bowls, but that seems strange to me -- more on that in a moment). LSU, Alabama, and Oklahoma State get the top three spots. For the #4 spot, do we pick the BCS #4 Stanford? Oregon will have a good argument as Pac-12 champs (and 23-point victory over Stanford) for a spot ahead of Stanford. Arkansas (better two losses than Oregon's two losses), Boise State (one loss by one point to BCS #18 TCU), and Kansas State (two losses in this year's best conference) have cases, too. Even Big Ten champ Wisconsin and one-loss Houston might make noise, though their cases are not as good. One team (Oklahoma State) feels like it got left out of the title game. Imagine the complaining if we had a "plus one" system this year.
I mentioned picking two teams after the bowls as a strange way to do a "plus one" system. Why? What if Alabama beats LSU in a close game? Do voters pick those two teams to play a THIRD time? If LSU wins, and Oregon and Stanford win their bowl games, who plays LSU in the "plus one after the bowls" system?
For a playoff, four teams are not enough. Picking four means picking teams that are one win away from the title game. There are more than four teams that have cases this year for the four slots (and probably in most other years, too). With eight teams, there is no worry of leaving out the best team, even if there is an argument for the last slot. Sixteen is too many for 120 schools playing 12-13 games. With eight teams, a title-game school will have to play three playoff games, about the length of a quarter of the regular season. Use the BCS, or some other system, to seed eight teams in the four big bowls. Play the other bowls as usual. As a Vandy alum, I'm happy that my 6-6 team gets to play in the Liberty Bowl this year. Once the bowls are done, we have a Final Four in college football. Little schools and schools with no big football aspirations (like my school) are happy with their little bowls; football powers decide the champ on the field; and, money would flow with a Final Four and three more games.
I've had this idea since the BCS came into existence. This is the first time I've written it down publicly. There are 70 teams playing in the 35 bowl games this year. That means that 58.3% of all FBS schools are in bowl games, including a team with a losing record (6-7 UCLA). There are 13 schools (like Vandy) with 6-6 records. Clearly, the bowls are not for picking champions when 20% (14 of 70) of the teams don't even have winning records. But, imagine the Rose, Sugar, Fiesta, and Orange Bowls used for the top eight schools. How great would a Final Four in college football be after bowl season is finished?
College football could have its cake and eat it, too. The pageantry of bowl season would be preserved, and the champion would be decided on the field. With eight teams, nobody would ever claim the champion was left out of the title shot.
10 December 2011
Indiana takes down #1!!!
Indiana University beat the #1-ranked University of Kentucky in college basketball today by the score of 73-72. Click here if you are interested in the story. I'm not writing this post to reveal keen insights into the physics behind any special play. This post is not about physics. This post is about screaming your head off when your alma mater does something wonderful. When Christian Watford's three-pointer went in as time expired, I jumped for joy and screamed for as long as my lungs would let me.
That's what college sports give you. My alma maters (Vanderbilt University was my undergraduate school; Indiana University was my graduate school) permeate my life, especially in basketball season. Unlike a professional team, a person's alma mater is a part of himself or herself in a personal and emotional way. I loved seeing my fellow Hoosiers storm the court. I loved seeing Tom Crean get his biggest win at Indiana. We love our schools through good times and bad times. We suffer the pain of each loss; our days are made with each win. Watford's shot definitely made my day!
Physics will have to wait for another time. Sports are meant to be savored first for those "I can't believe what I just saw!" moments. I'll think about physics later. For now, it's GO HOOSIERS!!!
That's what college sports give you. My alma maters (Vanderbilt University was my undergraduate school; Indiana University was my graduate school) permeate my life, especially in basketball season. Unlike a professional team, a person's alma mater is a part of himself or herself in a personal and emotional way. I loved seeing my fellow Hoosiers storm the court. I loved seeing Tom Crean get his biggest win at Indiana. We love our schools through good times and bad times. We suffer the pain of each loss; our days are made with each win. Watford's shot definitely made my day!
Physics will have to wait for another time. Sports are meant to be savored first for those "I can't believe what I just saw!" moments. I'll think about physics later. For now, it's GO HOOSIERS!!!
06 December 2011
Tim Tebow and Sidearm Deliveries
I analyzed Tim Tebow's sidearm delivery and how it influences the range of his long passes. This was done at the request of YAHOO! SPORTS. Click here for the link to the article by Kristian Dyer.
05 December 2011
My dog loves soccer!
A traditional 32-panel soccer ball (association football) has 20 regular hexagonal faces and 12 regular pentagonal faces. Because the faces are stitched together and the surface must hold a latex bladder that contains air above atmospheric pressure, the 32 geometrical faces are not flat. They are curved outward a little, which is why a soccer ball is not the same thing as a truncated icosahedron, which is one of the 13 Archimedean solids loved by mathematicians and a few physicists (like me!).
The stitched faces that curve outward also serve another purpose, one completely new to me until just a few days ago. The faces allow just enough gripping space for a dog to hold. Click here for a YouTube video of my dog playing soccer. At the very beginning of the video, you'll see my dog carrying the ball in her teeth. I never thought a dog that size could carry a soccer ball! The spacing of the pentagons and hexagons is just enough to allow my dog to sink her teeth into the gaps and hold the ball.
Later in the video, you will see my dog pushing the ball along with her nose. My older daughter is trying to coax our dog into playing. I've been happy that my daughters show an interest in learning soccer. Now I know that my dog has an itch for the beautiful game as well!
The stitched faces that curve outward also serve another purpose, one completely new to me until just a few days ago. The faces allow just enough gripping space for a dog to hold. Click here for a YouTube video of my dog playing soccer. At the very beginning of the video, you'll see my dog carrying the ball in her teeth. I never thought a dog that size could carry a soccer ball! The spacing of the pentagons and hexagons is just enough to allow my dog to sink her teeth into the gaps and hold the ball.
Later in the video, you will see my dog pushing the ball along with her nose. My older daughter is trying to coax our dog into playing. I've been happy that my daughters show an interest in learning soccer. Now I know that my dog has an itch for the beautiful game as well!
22 November 2011
Science and what we need to know ...
The late George Carlin was one of my favorite comics. His observation about how we view people who drive either faster or slower than we drive is fantastic (click here for a video clip). Basically, those who drive slower than us are "idiots," and those who drive faster than us are "maniacs." What's great about Carlin's observation is that those labels for "other" people are relative to a given person driving a car. In other words, each of us sets his or her "standard" for something, and then we perceive the different "standards" of other people as strange, annoying, bizarre, perplexing, etc. Essentially any difference we meet in another person is subject to criticism, scorn, laughter, or any other response that suggests that we are bothered in some way by the difference. Racism, homophobia, and other forms of hate are born of this idea. Think about this idea in terms of how a person holding certain religious beliefs views others who hold different religious beliefs. Carlin's observation applies to much more than driving.
Apply Carlin's idea to what people know and what people "should" know. What is "common knowledge," and who defines it? Should a person in a given country know the current president of that country? What about the number of hours in a day? What about the time needed for the Earth to make one complete trip around the sun? Should a person know at least one Biblical story? What about a story from the Quran? Should people know world capitals? What about dates of the two world wars? Should people be able to speak intelligently about Darwin's theory of natural selection? What about Einstein's theories of special and general relativities? Should people know about entropy and the second law of thermodynamics? Is the name of at least one play by Shakespeare something a person should know? What about a play by Herbert Isaac Ernest Dhlomo? Are Newton's laws of motion to be considered as "common knowledge" or only for those erudite few? Should a person be able to say something intelligent about Kant's categorical imperative? Given the world's financial problems in recent years, should a person be able to say something of substance about Keynesian economics?
I could obviously go on. My question to you is how many of the questions in the previous paragraph do you answer, "Of course someone should know that!" and how many do you answer "That's a bit too esoteric for common knowledge!"? Did you ever learn something in grade school, find out a friend didn't know that thing you just learned, and then tease your friend for not knowing it? Maybe you said, "I can't believe you don't know that!" or perhaps, "Yeah, everyone knows that!" I believe we all like to think we know enough not be on the end of someone asking us, "You don't know that?" Do we apply Carlin's comedy to knowledge? Do we think those who know less than us to be "idiots" and those who know more to be "know-it-alls" or "show offs"?
Each of us surely draws his or her own line through what's knowable, one side being the "everyone should know that" side and the other being the "we can get by without knowing that" side. Because everyone puts the line through knowledge in different places, it's a challenge for a government to set any kind of educational standard that will make most people happy.
I love discussions on "what should be known" outside the sciences. Because this is a blog devoted mostly to sports science, however, let me stick with science. I have met people who believe that the Earth takes a month to orbit the sun. I have met people, two who actually teach science in high schools, who think that the phases of the moon are due to the Earth's shadow on the moon. I have met people who think that summer and winter are explained by the "fact" that the Earth is closer to the sun in summer and farther away in winter. On this last item, I asked one of those people how it is that we in the US are enjoying summer while someone in, say, Australia is enjoying winter. On the issue of the moon's phases, I remember pointing to the moon and the sun, which happen to be visible at the same time, to someone of the "Earth's shadow" belief. When I first talked about moon's phases to my young daughters, I used a basketball, a ping pong ball, and a flashlight. That's all it takes to dispel the "Earth's shadow" idea.
Regarding the time it takes Earth to orbit the sun, ask yourself the following question. How often in your daily life, or entire life, for that matter, do you actually need to make use of the fact that the Earth orbits the sun in one year? I've used that fact in calculations I've done, but I suspect most people never actually need to use that fact in any practical application. People can go through an entire fulfilling lifetime without ever putting that fact to use. So, should people know how long it takes for the Earth to orbit the sun, at least to the nearest day? Is that "fact" on your "everyone should know that" side or your "that's not really necessary to know" side?
Am I crazy to even ask the question that ends the previous paragraph? There is a nontrivial number of people who don't know how long it takes Earth to go around the sun or why we have summer and winter. Is it haughty to think of those people as "idiots," or is there not such a cause for alarm?
I suppose I have my own idea of "what people should know" when it comes to science. My list is not important. What is important is why people should know some facts that science provides. Note that science seeks truth about how the natural world works. We in science "seek" truth, even if we never attain "absolute" truth because of experimental uncertainty. There are many "facts" that we believe to be "true" because of all the data and evidence acquired to support those "facts." Recent experiments that suggest a certain type of neutrino might be traveling faster than light remind us that our models of the world can always be challenged and perhaps changed. That's okay! We in science relish the opportunity to gain deeper understanding of how the universe actually works, even if means giving up a previously-held "fact." Science is about seeking knowledge through the accumulation of data and evidence, and testing models put forth to explain how the universe works. Science is NOT a belief system like, for example, one's religious beliefs. We do not believe in how long it takes the Earth to orbit the sun, we know how long it takes within the uncertainties of measurement.
Understanding how science works is the basis for the "why" in why I think people should know some scientific facts. If people know, for example, that the Earth takes a year to orbit the sun, and they know that "fact" because they understand how scientists came to define a "year" and how measurements are used to give us the "numbers" we use as "facts," they are far better off than simply believing in what a year is. Through an understanding of how science goes about its business, people are more likely to think critically about what science has to say on issues like energy usage, global warming, nuclear weapons, and so forth. We can appreciate how difficult the science associated with, say, global warming is, and what kinds of error bars there are. We can see data on that issue and begin to make political choices. There is no need to "believe" in global warming; there is, however, a need to understand how science in that field is done, even if we don't understand all the details.
Teaching sports physics allows me the opportunity to replace myths ("hanging in the air," "curve balls that drop off the table," etc.) with scientific understanding. I find much more elegance and beauty in what is real than I do in fantastical myths used to "explain" phenomena. Baseballs curve through the air because of an asymmetrical separation in the boundary layer of air around the balls. That's much cooler to me than thinking of balls falling off invisible tables!
To anyone reading this long-winded blog post, learn about how scientists do their work. You don't need to be a scientist do that! Learn a few "facts" that we get from science, and how those "facts" became "facts" in the first place. Just learning about a few "facts" will be sufficient. When science has something to say about global warming, for example, you won't simply need to "believe" or "not believe" what is reported. You can think critically about what results have large uncertainties and what results are fairly well established as "facts." Hey, knowledge is power, right? I've certainly got a lot more to learn about how the universe works. Right now, I happen to be thinking about those glorious cricket balls and the "reverse swing" that only a few, elite bowlers have mastered. I can't wait for what I'll be trying to learn after getting a better understanding of cricket balls in flight!
Apply Carlin's idea to what people know and what people "should" know. What is "common knowledge," and who defines it? Should a person in a given country know the current president of that country? What about the number of hours in a day? What about the time needed for the Earth to make one complete trip around the sun? Should a person know at least one Biblical story? What about a story from the Quran? Should people know world capitals? What about dates of the two world wars? Should people be able to speak intelligently about Darwin's theory of natural selection? What about Einstein's theories of special and general relativities? Should people know about entropy and the second law of thermodynamics? Is the name of at least one play by Shakespeare something a person should know? What about a play by Herbert Isaac Ernest Dhlomo? Are Newton's laws of motion to be considered as "common knowledge" or only for those erudite few? Should a person be able to say something intelligent about Kant's categorical imperative? Given the world's financial problems in recent years, should a person be able to say something of substance about Keynesian economics?
I could obviously go on. My question to you is how many of the questions in the previous paragraph do you answer, "Of course someone should know that!" and how many do you answer "That's a bit too esoteric for common knowledge!"? Did you ever learn something in grade school, find out a friend didn't know that thing you just learned, and then tease your friend for not knowing it? Maybe you said, "I can't believe you don't know that!" or perhaps, "Yeah, everyone knows that!" I believe we all like to think we know enough not be on the end of someone asking us, "You don't know that?" Do we apply Carlin's comedy to knowledge? Do we think those who know less than us to be "idiots" and those who know more to be "know-it-alls" or "show offs"?
Each of us surely draws his or her own line through what's knowable, one side being the "everyone should know that" side and the other being the "we can get by without knowing that" side. Because everyone puts the line through knowledge in different places, it's a challenge for a government to set any kind of educational standard that will make most people happy.
I love discussions on "what should be known" outside the sciences. Because this is a blog devoted mostly to sports science, however, let me stick with science. I have met people who believe that the Earth takes a month to orbit the sun. I have met people, two who actually teach science in high schools, who think that the phases of the moon are due to the Earth's shadow on the moon. I have met people who think that summer and winter are explained by the "fact" that the Earth is closer to the sun in summer and farther away in winter. On this last item, I asked one of those people how it is that we in the US are enjoying summer while someone in, say, Australia is enjoying winter. On the issue of the moon's phases, I remember pointing to the moon and the sun, which happen to be visible at the same time, to someone of the "Earth's shadow" belief. When I first talked about moon's phases to my young daughters, I used a basketball, a ping pong ball, and a flashlight. That's all it takes to dispel the "Earth's shadow" idea.
Regarding the time it takes Earth to orbit the sun, ask yourself the following question. How often in your daily life, or entire life, for that matter, do you actually need to make use of the fact that the Earth orbits the sun in one year? I've used that fact in calculations I've done, but I suspect most people never actually need to use that fact in any practical application. People can go through an entire fulfilling lifetime without ever putting that fact to use. So, should people know how long it takes for the Earth to orbit the sun, at least to the nearest day? Is that "fact" on your "everyone should know that" side or your "that's not really necessary to know" side?
Am I crazy to even ask the question that ends the previous paragraph? There is a nontrivial number of people who don't know how long it takes Earth to go around the sun or why we have summer and winter. Is it haughty to think of those people as "idiots," or is there not such a cause for alarm?
I suppose I have my own idea of "what people should know" when it comes to science. My list is not important. What is important is why people should know some facts that science provides. Note that science seeks truth about how the natural world works. We in science "seek" truth, even if we never attain "absolute" truth because of experimental uncertainty. There are many "facts" that we believe to be "true" because of all the data and evidence acquired to support those "facts." Recent experiments that suggest a certain type of neutrino might be traveling faster than light remind us that our models of the world can always be challenged and perhaps changed. That's okay! We in science relish the opportunity to gain deeper understanding of how the universe actually works, even if means giving up a previously-held "fact." Science is about seeking knowledge through the accumulation of data and evidence, and testing models put forth to explain how the universe works. Science is NOT a belief system like, for example, one's religious beliefs. We do not believe in how long it takes the Earth to orbit the sun, we know how long it takes within the uncertainties of measurement.
Understanding how science works is the basis for the "why" in why I think people should know some scientific facts. If people know, for example, that the Earth takes a year to orbit the sun, and they know that "fact" because they understand how scientists came to define a "year" and how measurements are used to give us the "numbers" we use as "facts," they are far better off than simply believing in what a year is. Through an understanding of how science goes about its business, people are more likely to think critically about what science has to say on issues like energy usage, global warming, nuclear weapons, and so forth. We can appreciate how difficult the science associated with, say, global warming is, and what kinds of error bars there are. We can see data on that issue and begin to make political choices. There is no need to "believe" in global warming; there is, however, a need to understand how science in that field is done, even if we don't understand all the details.
Teaching sports physics allows me the opportunity to replace myths ("hanging in the air," "curve balls that drop off the table," etc.) with scientific understanding. I find much more elegance and beauty in what is real than I do in fantastical myths used to "explain" phenomena. Baseballs curve through the air because of an asymmetrical separation in the boundary layer of air around the balls. That's much cooler to me than thinking of balls falling off invisible tables!
To anyone reading this long-winded blog post, learn about how scientists do their work. You don't need to be a scientist do that! Learn a few "facts" that we get from science, and how those "facts" became "facts" in the first place. Just learning about a few "facts" will be sufficient. When science has something to say about global warming, for example, you won't simply need to "believe" or "not believe" what is reported. You can think critically about what results have large uncertainties and what results are fairly well established as "facts." Hey, knowledge is power, right? I've certainly got a lot more to learn about how the universe works. Right now, I happen to be thinking about those glorious cricket balls and the "reverse swing" that only a few, elite bowlers have mastered. I can't wait for what I'll be trying to learn after getting a better understanding of cricket balls in flight!
21 November 2011
Congrats to the Galaxy!
Will soccer take off in the US and reach a status comparable to its status in the rest of the world? Probably not in the near future. But last night's thrilling MLS Cup win by the Los Angeles Galaxy should help soccer's progress. Without a doubt, most US sports fans were on Sunday focused on our version of professional "football." Lots of southern US sports fans were surely watching auto racing. My hope is that US sports fans at least got a glimmer of the MLS Cup highlights.
My appreciation for soccer came relatively late in my life when in my mid 30s I really watched the sport for the first time. Soccer is a game of nuances. It's about probing and testing and looking for opportunities to exploit even the smallest of mistakes. People in the US have criticized soccer because of "lack of scoring" and "too many ties" (or draws). Los Angeles beat Houston by the score of 1-0. Many US sports fans are likely to think that that score indicates a "boring" game. That would have been my opinion ten years ago. Landon Donovan's goal in the 72nd minute was great all by itself. But the goal was even greater when one appreciates the fancy footwork of Robbie Keane that made the Houston defense look lost. It was Keane that fed the ball to Donovan. Keane was able to shine because of a well-placed header by David Beckham. Precision passing and fancy footwork propelled the Galaxy to the Cup win.
Keep in mind that Beckham had been probing the Houston defense all game long. The Galaxy kept pecking away until a goal was possible. Sure, LA missed a couple of golden opportunities earlier in the game, but that's part of the game, too. Despite just a single goal, I saw a great deal of athleticism, heart, determination, passion, precision passing, fancy footwork, and good defense. Why is it so hard to enjoy a great attack on goal when no goal is scored? Hey, that's a question I couldn't answer ten years ago!
Thanks to DVR, I was lucky to be able to watch most of yesterday's Liverpool win over Chelsea. That game ended 2-1, and it was exciting watching much of the second half while the score was 1-1. Each attack on goal had me on the edge of my seat. Chelsea dominated the possession time, but could not find the go-ahead goal. And then, in the 87th minute, Glen Johnson found the back of the net for Liverpool.
No longer do I need to see a bunch of goals to enjoy soccer. Seeing great athletes performing amazing feats in the "beautiful game" is thrilling for me. The ball sometimes moves in amazing ways, but always within the constraints of the laws of physics. Having a good understanding of the "why" behind athletes at the pinnacle of their métier makes watching soccer a lot of fun!
My appreciation for soccer came relatively late in my life when in my mid 30s I really watched the sport for the first time. Soccer is a game of nuances. It's about probing and testing and looking for opportunities to exploit even the smallest of mistakes. People in the US have criticized soccer because of "lack of scoring" and "too many ties" (or draws). Los Angeles beat Houston by the score of 1-0. Many US sports fans are likely to think that that score indicates a "boring" game. That would have been my opinion ten years ago. Landon Donovan's goal in the 72nd minute was great all by itself. But the goal was even greater when one appreciates the fancy footwork of Robbie Keane that made the Houston defense look lost. It was Keane that fed the ball to Donovan. Keane was able to shine because of a well-placed header by David Beckham. Precision passing and fancy footwork propelled the Galaxy to the Cup win.
Keep in mind that Beckham had been probing the Houston defense all game long. The Galaxy kept pecking away until a goal was possible. Sure, LA missed a couple of golden opportunities earlier in the game, but that's part of the game, too. Despite just a single goal, I saw a great deal of athleticism, heart, determination, passion, precision passing, fancy footwork, and good defense. Why is it so hard to enjoy a great attack on goal when no goal is scored? Hey, that's a question I couldn't answer ten years ago!
Thanks to DVR, I was lucky to be able to watch most of yesterday's Liverpool win over Chelsea. That game ended 2-1, and it was exciting watching much of the second half while the score was 1-1. Each attack on goal had me on the edge of my seat. Chelsea dominated the possession time, but could not find the go-ahead goal. And then, in the 87th minute, Glen Johnson found the back of the net for Liverpool.
No longer do I need to see a bunch of goals to enjoy soccer. Seeing great athletes performing amazing feats in the "beautiful game" is thrilling for me. The ball sometimes moves in amazing ways, but always within the constraints of the laws of physics. Having a good understanding of the "why" behind athletes at the pinnacle of their métier makes watching soccer a lot of fun!
07 November 2011
New NYC Marathon Record!
The 2011 New York City Marathon was run on Sunday, 6 November. Geoffrey Mutai of Kenya won the race in the record-breaking time of 2h 05' 05". The old record of 2h 07' 43" was set by the Ethiopian runner Tesfaye Jifar back in 2001. Jifar's time was also eclipsed yesterday by the second-place finisher, Emmanuel Mutai of Kenya at 2h 06' 28", and the third-place finisher, Tsegaye Kebede of Ethiopia at 2h 07' 13".
Geoffrey Mutai's average speed over the distance of 26 miles and 385 yards (42.195 km) was 12.577 mph (5.622 m/s). Put another way, Mutai averaged 4 minutes 46.246 seconds per mile. Click here for my blog post when the marathon world record was broken just over a month ago. Patrick Makau Musyoki of Kenya established the new record of 2h 03' 38". Musyoki's average speed of 5.688 m/s was about 1.17% faster than Mutai's average speed in yesterday's New York City Marathon.
Geoffrey Mutai's average speed over the distance of 26 miles and 385 yards (42.195 km) was 12.577 mph (5.622 m/s). Put another way, Mutai averaged 4 minutes 46.246 seconds per mile. Click here for my blog post when the marathon world record was broken just over a month ago. Patrick Makau Musyoki of Kenya established the new record of 2h 03' 38". Musyoki's average speed of 5.688 m/s was about 1.17% faster than Mutai's average speed in yesterday's New York City Marathon.
28 October 2011
Amazing baseball!
Game 6 of this year's World Series between the Texas Rangers and the St. Louis Cardinals was one of the most thrilling baseball games I've ever seen. The Rangers were one strike away from winning their first World Series in both the 9th and the 10th innings. The Cardinals fought back each time. The game ended in dramatic fashion when David Freese hit a solo home run in the bottom of the 11th to win it for the Cardinals.
As great a game as tonight's game was, I can't help but wonder how many sports fans missed the final couple of innings. I saw 12:40 am on my clock here on the east coast of the US when Freese touched home plate with the game-ending run. I have to get up early on Friday morning and get ready for work; many other sports fans will need to do the same. Major League Baseball has got to do something about important games starting so late. Sure, extra innings make for a late finish. Still, one of the most thrilling games in the sport's championship series should not end at midnight, much less 12:40 am, on a weeknight. I'm curious to know how television ratings for tonight's game changed as Thursday gave way to Friday on the east coast.
One interesting bit of physics caught my eye in tonight's game. Albert Pujols led off the bottom of the 6th inning by striking out looking. He took two straight pitches that appeared to cross the plate at roughly the same point. The first was a breaking pitch that home plate umpire Gary Cederstrom called a ball, and rightly so because the pitch was low. The second was a fastball that Cederstrom called a strike, much to the dismay of Pujols because that was strike three. That pitch was low and should have been called a ball.
Think about the view of the two pitches from the umpire's point of view. The breaking ball that Pujols took was dropping with an acceleration greater than that of the local acceleration due to gravity. The fastball that Pujols took for a called strike three was dropping with an acceleration less than the acceleration due to gravity. Though he was wrong to call the latter pitch a strike, I can't blame Cederstrom too much for the missed call. After having seen a ball dropping quickly to a plane below the strike zone, Cederstrom saw the next pitch at about the same location, but it was not accelerating downward as much as the previous pitch. He clearly thought the pitched crossed the plate higher than the previous pitch. Given that the human eye cannot fully track a Major League fastball during the roughly 0.4 seconds it takes to get from the pitcher's hand to home plate, and given the different downward accelerations of the two pitches, I can understand how Cederstrom could have perceived the two pitches as crossing the plate at different heights.
As great a game as tonight's game was, I can't help but wonder how many sports fans missed the final couple of innings. I saw 12:40 am on my clock here on the east coast of the US when Freese touched home plate with the game-ending run. I have to get up early on Friday morning and get ready for work; many other sports fans will need to do the same. Major League Baseball has got to do something about important games starting so late. Sure, extra innings make for a late finish. Still, one of the most thrilling games in the sport's championship series should not end at midnight, much less 12:40 am, on a weeknight. I'm curious to know how television ratings for tonight's game changed as Thursday gave way to Friday on the east coast.
One interesting bit of physics caught my eye in tonight's game. Albert Pujols led off the bottom of the 6th inning by striking out looking. He took two straight pitches that appeared to cross the plate at roughly the same point. The first was a breaking pitch that home plate umpire Gary Cederstrom called a ball, and rightly so because the pitch was low. The second was a fastball that Cederstrom called a strike, much to the dismay of Pujols because that was strike three. That pitch was low and should have been called a ball.
Think about the view of the two pitches from the umpire's point of view. The breaking ball that Pujols took was dropping with an acceleration greater than that of the local acceleration due to gravity. The fastball that Pujols took for a called strike three was dropping with an acceleration less than the acceleration due to gravity. Though he was wrong to call the latter pitch a strike, I can't blame Cederstrom too much for the missed call. After having seen a ball dropping quickly to a plane below the strike zone, Cederstrom saw the next pitch at about the same location, but it was not accelerating downward as much as the previous pitch. He clearly thought the pitched crossed the plate higher than the previous pitch. Given that the human eye cannot fully track a Major League fastball during the roughly 0.4 seconds it takes to get from the pitcher's hand to home plate, and given the different downward accelerations of the two pitches, I can understand how Cederstrom could have perceived the two pitches as crossing the plate at different heights.
23 October 2011
All Blacks Win Rugby World Cup!
Following the 2011 Rugby World Cup has been challenging for me. Besides the time difference between New Zealand and the east coast of the US, there is simply not much interest in rugby in my country. The games are not readily available on standard television packages. This is the first Rugby World Cup that I have followed, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it! Congratulations to the New Zealand All Blacks. They won a tight match over the French Tricolores, 8-7. This is New Zealand's second championship after having won the inaugural Rugby World Cup in 1987, also over France.
I will give one more shout out to my former editor, Trevor Lipscombe. Reading his book, The Physics of Rugby, during this year's World Cup made for lots of fun (click here to get a copy). I still have much to learn about rugby and its gloried history. But, like everything else, rugby is constrained by the laws of physics. Science gives me a good starting point for enjoying a sport I knew very little about just five years ago. With any luck, I might be able to hop across the pond for a match or two in the 2015 World Cup in England.
I will give one more shout out to my former editor, Trevor Lipscombe. Reading his book, The Physics of Rugby, during this year's World Cup made for lots of fun (click here to get a copy). I still have much to learn about rugby and its gloried history. But, like everything else, rugby is constrained by the laws of physics. Science gives me a good starting point for enjoying a sport I knew very little about just five years ago. With any luck, I might be able to hop across the pond for a match or two in the 2015 World Cup in England.
16 October 2011
Dan Wheldon
As a physicist who researches the sports world, I have been asked if science dehumanizes sports. I understand that basketball players do not hang in the air and fastballs do not rise. The truth about how the universe works has always fascinated more than myths. Scientific understanding of the sports world provides me with avenues to look at and enjoy sports in ways many people cannot. Understanding how a great sports feat is performed does the opposite for me of dehumanizing sports; it allows me to see how talented human beings can nearly reach the limits set by the constraining laws of physics. The awe that that gives me is entirely human.
I saw the terrible crash that took the life of Dan Wheldon today (click here for an ESPN story). The horror of the incident reminded me of how much humans push themselves and machines to cross a finish line in record time for the entertainment of those of us without the skill or the intestinal fortitude to embark on such a life. Upon seeing a great sporting event, my jaw drops first because of the tingling I feel inside induced by watching something so magnificent. Only later do I use science to help me understand what I saw. I am quite sure that science will help gain understanding of how such a terrible crash happened in Las Vegas, Nevada.
First and foremost, however, is that a wonderfully talented 33-year-old driver was killed. He won this year's Indy 500, his second win after his 2005 victory. More import than any race, Emberton-born Dan Wheldon leaves behind a wife and two very young sons. I have two young daughters. Words fail me for what Wheldon's family must be going through. For all that science helps us understand in the sports world, we are reminded today that real human beings are behind the helmets, masks, cars, and numbers that give us so many thrills. Dan Wheldon gave us a lot of racing thrills. My sincerest condolences go out to his family.
I saw the terrible crash that took the life of Dan Wheldon today (click here for an ESPN story). The horror of the incident reminded me of how much humans push themselves and machines to cross a finish line in record time for the entertainment of those of us without the skill or the intestinal fortitude to embark on such a life. Upon seeing a great sporting event, my jaw drops first because of the tingling I feel inside induced by watching something so magnificent. Only later do I use science to help me understand what I saw. I am quite sure that science will help gain understanding of how such a terrible crash happened in Las Vegas, Nevada.
First and foremost, however, is that a wonderfully talented 33-year-old driver was killed. He won this year's Indy 500, his second win after his 2005 victory. More import than any race, Emberton-born Dan Wheldon leaves behind a wife and two very young sons. I have two young daughters. Words fail me for what Wheldon's family must be going through. For all that science helps us understand in the sports world, we are reminded today that real human beings are behind the helmets, masks, cars, and numbers that give us so many thrills. Dan Wheldon gave us a lot of racing thrills. My sincerest condolences go out to his family.
08 October 2011
Wins, Losses, and Quick Outs
I thoroughly enjoyed watching last night's Cardinals win over the Phillies. I really wasn't pulling that hard for either team, but the pitching on both sides was a thing of beauty. Chris Carpenter pitched a complete-game shutout for St. Louis, giving up just three hits and walking none. Roy Halladay pitched eight innings for Philadelphia, gave up six hits, walked one, and allowed a first-inning run.
Carpenter clearly pitched better than Halladay, but not by leaps and bounds. Halladay pitched a great game, but got the "loss" because his team couldn't score any runs for him. Carpenter got the "win" even though his team mustered just one run. Sure, Carpenter pitched a fantastic game, but the "win" and "loss" statistics for pitchers really don't say much.
Baseball playoffs are good examples of how small sample sizes do not reveal much. The Cards advance and the Phillies go home after last night's game was decided by a single run. The Phillies were 12 games better than the Cards over the regular season, which is comprised of 162 games for each team.
The Phillies finished with 12 wins more than the Cards. What did that get them? Philadelphia got to host three out of five playoff games in the first round of the playoffs. That's really not much of a bonus after such a great regular season! With fewer teams in the playoffs in past years, baseball better rewarded success over a long season. There is now talk about adding more playoff teams. What is the incentive to win 100 games when a team needs only to win 90 (no easy task in MLB!) to secure a playoff spot? If more teams are added, I hope the team with the best record in each league will get a first-round bye. In that scenario the regular season will mean a little more than it does now. Sorry Philly fans. Your team's 102 wins didn't help much in a five-game playoff series. The Phillies outscored the Cards 21-19 over their five-game series, but the Cards got what mattered -- three wins. Philadelphia was a quick out this year.
Carpenter clearly pitched better than Halladay, but not by leaps and bounds. Halladay pitched a great game, but got the "loss" because his team couldn't score any runs for him. Carpenter got the "win" even though his team mustered just one run. Sure, Carpenter pitched a fantastic game, but the "win" and "loss" statistics for pitchers really don't say much.
Baseball playoffs are good examples of how small sample sizes do not reveal much. The Cards advance and the Phillies go home after last night's game was decided by a single run. The Phillies were 12 games better than the Cards over the regular season, which is comprised of 162 games for each team.
The Phillies finished with 12 wins more than the Cards. What did that get them? Philadelphia got to host three out of five playoff games in the first round of the playoffs. That's really not much of a bonus after such a great regular season! With fewer teams in the playoffs in past years, baseball better rewarded success over a long season. There is now talk about adding more playoff teams. What is the incentive to win 100 games when a team needs only to win 90 (no easy task in MLB!) to secure a playoff spot? If more teams are added, I hope the team with the best record in each league will get a first-round bye. In that scenario the regular season will mean a little more than it does now. Sorry Philly fans. Your team's 102 wins didn't help much in a five-game playoff series. The Phillies outscored the Cards 21-19 over their five-game series, but the Cards got what mattered -- three wins. Philadelphia was a quick out this year.
29 September 2011
Wacky baseball night!
Baseball fans in the US are now well familiar with the epic collapse of the Boston Red Sox and the Atlanta Braves. Last night was probably the most exciting night of baseball I have seen in at least ten years. There are many, many places to read about what happened to the Red Sox and Braves.
I wish to point out something else that interested me last night. There were four shutouts last night, three of which were complete-game shutouts by starting pitchers. The most important of the four was Chris Carpenter's gem against the Houston Astros. Carpenter gave up just two hits and one walk while striking out 11. Also throwing a two-hit shutout was Miguel Batista of the New York Mets. He blanked the Cincinnati Reds as the Mets finished the season at 77-85.
The one run the hapless Minnesota Twins scored for Carl Pavano was enough as Pavano shutout the Kansas City Royals while giving up five hits. The win kept Minnesota's loss total for the season at 99.
Finally, the Seattle Mariners were shutout last night by two pitchers for the Oakland A's. Gio Gonzalez gave up just two hits in eight innings; Andrew Bailey got the save after pitching a scoreless 9th inning. It is a fitting end to the Mariners' season as they finished dead last in baseball in on-base percentage, slugging percentage, batting average, and runs scored. The team's on-base percentage was 0.292 for the season. Ouch. Scoring just 556 runs in 162 games, the Mariners averaged about 3.43 runs per game. The American League ERA average was 4.08 with the Angles leading the pack at 3.57. Pitching against Seattle this past year meant that every team was better than the best pitching staff in the league!
There were 323 shutouts in major league baseball this past season; four of them took place last night. There were 2429 total games played (the Dodgers and Nationals missed a game against each other), meaning shutouts happened in about 13.3% of the games. There were four shutouts last night in the 15 games played, or about 26.7% of the games, which is double the seasonal average. I know not to make much out of single points of data, but I did find it interesting that four shutouts took place on the last day of the regular season.
I wish to point out something else that interested me last night. There were four shutouts last night, three of which were complete-game shutouts by starting pitchers. The most important of the four was Chris Carpenter's gem against the Houston Astros. Carpenter gave up just two hits and one walk while striking out 11. Also throwing a two-hit shutout was Miguel Batista of the New York Mets. He blanked the Cincinnati Reds as the Mets finished the season at 77-85.
The one run the hapless Minnesota Twins scored for Carl Pavano was enough as Pavano shutout the Kansas City Royals while giving up five hits. The win kept Minnesota's loss total for the season at 99.
Finally, the Seattle Mariners were shutout last night by two pitchers for the Oakland A's. Gio Gonzalez gave up just two hits in eight innings; Andrew Bailey got the save after pitching a scoreless 9th inning. It is a fitting end to the Mariners' season as they finished dead last in baseball in on-base percentage, slugging percentage, batting average, and runs scored. The team's on-base percentage was 0.292 for the season. Ouch. Scoring just 556 runs in 162 games, the Mariners averaged about 3.43 runs per game. The American League ERA average was 4.08 with the Angles leading the pack at 3.57. Pitching against Seattle this past year meant that every team was better than the best pitching staff in the league!
There were 323 shutouts in major league baseball this past season; four of them took place last night. There were 2429 total games played (the Dodgers and Nationals missed a game against each other), meaning shutouts happened in about 13.3% of the games. There were four shutouts last night in the 15 games played, or about 26.7% of the games, which is double the seasonal average. I know not to make much out of single points of data, but I did find it interesting that four shutouts took place on the last day of the regular season.
27 September 2011
So long to the Eagles ...
Italy defeated the US in the 2011 Rugby World Cup, 27-10. Italy got a bonus point, which sets the stage for a great match with Ireland on 2 October. My initial thought was that Ireland would make it through, but there is still work to do against Italy.
Congratulations to Italy for a great win against the US. My country's team is now out of the direct qualifying pool for the 2015 World Cup in England. It will be interesting to see how rugby progresses in the US from here.
Congratulations to Italy for a great win against the US. My country's team is now out of the direct qualifying pool for the 2015 World Cup in England. It will be interesting to see how rugby progresses in the US from here.
26 September 2011
New Marathon World Record!
Congratulations to Patrick Makau Musyoki of Kenya for setting the new world record in the marathon at the Berlin Marathon on 25 September 2011. The new record is 21 seconds better than the old, which was set almost three years ago by Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia. Musyoki finished the 26-mile and 385-yard race in 2 hours 3 minutes and 38 seconds.
What was Musyoki's average speed? Take the distance traveled (26 miles 385 yards or 42.195 km) over his record-breaking time and get 12.724 mph = 20.478 km/hr = 5.688 m/s. Put another way, Musyoki averaged 4 minutes 42.927 seconds per mile.
I have never run a mile in under 5 minutes in my entire life. Musyoki averaged better than 4.75 minutes per mile for more than 26 miles!
Note that 25 September 2011 is an historic day in Kenya. Besides Musyoki's new marathon world record, Kenya lost one of its greatest citizens. Wangari Maathai, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, died on the same day. A phenomenal political and environmental activist, Maathai's Nobel Peace Prize marked the first time the award was given to an African woman. Click here to learn more about Maathai's work.
What was Musyoki's average speed? Take the distance traveled (26 miles 385 yards or 42.195 km) over his record-breaking time and get 12.724 mph = 20.478 km/hr = 5.688 m/s. Put another way, Musyoki averaged 4 minutes 42.927 seconds per mile.
I have never run a mile in under 5 minutes in my entire life. Musyoki averaged better than 4.75 minutes per mile for more than 26 miles!
Note that 25 September 2011 is an historic day in Kenya. Besides Musyoki's new marathon world record, Kenya lost one of its greatest citizens. Wangari Maathai, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, died on the same day. A phenomenal political and environmental activist, Maathai's Nobel Peace Prize marked the first time the award was given to an African woman. Click here to learn more about Maathai's work.
23 September 2011
Wow ... Australia!
It is not easy following the 2011 Rugby World Cup while living in the US. Online updates were the best I could muster for my Eagles match against the Wallabies. Though we competed well against Ireland, we got hammered by Australia earlier today, 65-7. Congratulations to Adam Ashley-Cooper for scoring the fastest hat-trick ever in Rugby World Cup play. Ashley-Cooper accomplished the feat in just seven minutes. As obvious as it is to state, the US simply got clobbered by a much better team.
Australia and Ireland certainly look to advance out of Pool C, and that is probably not a shock to rugby fans. I am happy, however, to learn something about rugby in the US while following this year's Rugby World Cup. Even without the US in the knockout stage, I will keep following the other teams. I just hope I can watch some of the games.
The sport is relatively new to me, which makes learning about it a lot of fun. To nobody's surprise, there is a lot of interesting science in rugby. I am still reading The Physics of Rugby by Trevor Lipscombe (click here to get the book), and I am enjoying it. Though the physics is familiar to me, the rugby jargon and intricacies of the game are not. My ignorance of the game is driving me to learn more about it, its rules, styles of play, tactical subtleties, and legendary players. Rugby is definitely growing on me!
Australia and Ireland certainly look to advance out of Pool C, and that is probably not a shock to rugby fans. I am happy, however, to learn something about rugby in the US while following this year's Rugby World Cup. Even without the US in the knockout stage, I will keep following the other teams. I just hope I can watch some of the games.
The sport is relatively new to me, which makes learning about it a lot of fun. To nobody's surprise, there is a lot of interesting science in rugby. I am still reading The Physics of Rugby by Trevor Lipscombe (click here to get the book), and I am enjoying it. Though the physics is familiar to me, the rugby jargon and intricacies of the game are not. My ignorance of the game is driving me to learn more about it, its rules, styles of play, tactical subtleties, and legendary players. Rugby is definitely growing on me!
14 September 2011
A blocked punt leads to the Jets win over the Cowboys!
I analyzed Joe McKnight's great blocked punt from this past Sunday's Jets win over the Cowboys. This was done at the request of YAHOO! SPORTS. Click here for the link to the article by Kristian Dyer.
11 September 2011
My introduction to rugby ...
Growing up in the US meant that my sports interests were dominated by baseball, basketball, and football, the "Big Three" American sports. While in graduate school, I was introduced to other sports by friends and colleagues. I saw my first soccer game when I was about 24 years old; I played cricket for the first time when I was about 25 years old. As my research moved into sports physics, I became a lot more familiar with sports that are popular outside the US, like soccer and cycling. Studying the aerodynamics of soccer balls and modeling the Tour de France have opened my eyes to wonders in sports I never knew as a child.
Today is a special day in the US. We remember that terrible Tuesday morning ten years ago when we were so viciously attacked. Thousands of innocent people lost their lives because a group of people had no respect for human life. Feel free to read countless words elsewhere for analysis of the pernicious people who were responsible. My blog concerns physics and sports, and sometimes a little more. Hate and fear are borne out of ignorance. Even in the sports world, ignorance of a given sport may lead one to dislike that sport at first sight. I was that way with soccer. After just a cursory peek at the game as a child, I thought it was boring, certainly not like the action in the "Big Three" American sports. It wasn't until my mid thirties that I really watched soccer, and then grew to love The Beautiful Game.
While living in Sheffield, England during my 2008-09 sabbatical year, I had great fun watching "football" in pubs. I also had a lot of fun watching a sport I knew very little about -- rugby. On a trip to Ireland, my family saw the Irish national team play on television while we had a fantastic meal at the Brazen Head Hotel in east Dublin. After seeing a few more rugby matches in English pubs, the game grew on me a little. Nothing like removing ignorance of something to like it a little more, right?
Instead of watching American football on its opening Sunday today, I watched the NBC replay of the US vs Ireland match in the 2011 World Cup of Rugby. Despite the fact that the US lost by the score of 22-10, I rather enjoyed the match. My country's team is clearly not as good as the Irish team, but I admired the way we fought on defense. The rainy weather and some sloppy Irish passes made me appreciate how much physics there is in rugby. Reducing friction between the ball and a player's hands does not make for good passing!
My interest in the science of rugby has grown through knowing Trevor Lipscombe, my former book editor at The Johns Hopkins University Press. I have just started reading Trevor's book, The Physics of Rugby, and it is a wonderful read. Click here to get a copy from Amazon. I highly recommend it!
Finally, I learned something else while watching the halftime show on NBC. I did not know the name Mark Bingham. Born just 106 days before I was, he played on championship rugby teams at UC Berkeley. Mark Bingham was one of the heroes on United Airlines Flight 93, which went down ten years ago today. I'm glad to have watched the rugby halftime show because I got to learn about Mark Bingham. Click here for his Wikipedia page. Click here for efforts made after Bingham's death to give people who are victims of prejudice an opportunity to shine on a rugby field.
Today is a special day in the US. We remember that terrible Tuesday morning ten years ago when we were so viciously attacked. Thousands of innocent people lost their lives because a group of people had no respect for human life. Feel free to read countless words elsewhere for analysis of the pernicious people who were responsible. My blog concerns physics and sports, and sometimes a little more. Hate and fear are borne out of ignorance. Even in the sports world, ignorance of a given sport may lead one to dislike that sport at first sight. I was that way with soccer. After just a cursory peek at the game as a child, I thought it was boring, certainly not like the action in the "Big Three" American sports. It wasn't until my mid thirties that I really watched soccer, and then grew to love The Beautiful Game.
While living in Sheffield, England during my 2008-09 sabbatical year, I had great fun watching "football" in pubs. I also had a lot of fun watching a sport I knew very little about -- rugby. On a trip to Ireland, my family saw the Irish national team play on television while we had a fantastic meal at the Brazen Head Hotel in east Dublin. After seeing a few more rugby matches in English pubs, the game grew on me a little. Nothing like removing ignorance of something to like it a little more, right?
Instead of watching American football on its opening Sunday today, I watched the NBC replay of the US vs Ireland match in the 2011 World Cup of Rugby. Despite the fact that the US lost by the score of 22-10, I rather enjoyed the match. My country's team is clearly not as good as the Irish team, but I admired the way we fought on defense. The rainy weather and some sloppy Irish passes made me appreciate how much physics there is in rugby. Reducing friction between the ball and a player's hands does not make for good passing!
My interest in the science of rugby has grown through knowing Trevor Lipscombe, my former book editor at The Johns Hopkins University Press. I have just started reading Trevor's book, The Physics of Rugby, and it is a wonderful read. Click here to get a copy from Amazon. I highly recommend it!
Finally, I learned something else while watching the halftime show on NBC. I did not know the name Mark Bingham. Born just 106 days before I was, he played on championship rugby teams at UC Berkeley. Mark Bingham was one of the heroes on United Airlines Flight 93, which went down ten years ago today. I'm glad to have watched the rugby halftime show because I got to learn about Mark Bingham. Click here for his Wikipedia page. Click here for efforts made after Bingham's death to give people who are victims of prejudice an opportunity to shine on a rugby field.
He gave up FIVE HOMERS ... and got the WIN!
I saw an interesting box score last night. Click here for the box score of the Rockies win over the Reds. Thinking about the absurdity of the "win" and "loss" stats in baseball got me thinking once again about science and sports.
In physics, we concern ourselves with cause and effect. We want to understand why a hit baseball eventually returns to Earth just as must as we want to understand why an electron moves around the nucleus of an atom. Questions of why often involve a little philosophy because we use words like "gravity" and "electromagnetic force" to explain the baseball and the electron, respectively, even if we really don't understand what those interactions are. Richard Feynman once noted that we use the concept of "energy" all the time, but we really don't understand what energy is.
Perhaps we in science do better with how something works. We know how a baseball will move through the air because we have developed good models for gravity, air resistance, and the Magnus force that's responsible for a baseball curving. If we tuck philosophy under the rug, we feel good about our ability to describe why a baseball does what it does. We have a reasonable understanding of its motion (there are, however, still interesting questions to answer in the realm of baseball physics!).
Sabermetrics tries to understand the why in what happens in baseball. What can batters do as causes that best lead to the effect of runs on the scoreboard? What can pitchers do as causes that best lead to the effect of the opposing team not putting runs on the scoreboard? At the end of a game, the winner is determined by who has scored the most runs. How those runs were scored, be it by a bunch of home runs or via "small ball," is irrelevant.
Think about what a pitcher can control. He can strike out or walk a batter essentially all on his own. The manager or pitching coach might signal the catcher to signal the pitcher what pitch to throw and where to throw it, but the pitcher is the one who has to make the pitch. A pitcher can also give up a home run. The fielders can't do anything about a ball sailing into the stands. The pitcher can also pick runners off base and throw certain pitches that try to "induce" things like ground balls that might lead to double plays. Pitchers can also hit batters and throw wild pitches. But, really, a strikeout, a walk, and a home run are where the pitcher is most on his own. Everything else relies on the quality of the defense behind him, and subtle things like where managers have positioned the defense before a given player comes to bat also play a role. The bottom line is that a pitcher cannot "win" or "lose" a game all by himself; it's a team effort.
I am certainly not the first person to point out the absurdity of the "win" and "loss" stats in baseball. Though I've thought about it for more than two decades, this is the first time I've ever written about it in a public way. Many others have written on this topic, and much better than I will today. See, for example, what the great Joe Posnanski recently wrote by clicking here. Wins and loses might be fun stats and they have connections to baseball's storied past, but they do not say much about the cause and effect of what pitchers can do to prevent runs from being scored. As others have written, the "win" is not completely useless as a stat, especially over the length of a player's career. A pitcher who wins 300 games is a good (or great) pitcher, but the "win" stat doesn't tell the best story. Over the course of a long career, it might reveal some averaging over "tough luck" losses (say, 2-1) and "lucky" wins (say, 10-9). In the end, though, the career win total reflects how many games a pitcher pitched, how deep into games the pitcher was able to go (five innings needed for a starting pitcher to get a win), and how successful the pitcher's teams were. Greatness can be hidden from those who focus too hard on wins. Just click here to read what Rich Lederer has written since 2003 about the insanely long wait Bert Blyleven endured before getting the Hall of Fame call this past January.
Okay, back to last night's Rockies win over the Reds. Alex White got the "win" for the Rockies, despite giving up eight hits, seven runs (six of them "earned"), a walk, and FIVE HOME RUNS. He struck out just one batter. He got the "win" because (1) he pitched five innings and (2) the score was 8-7 Rockies after the fifth inning ended, and the Rockies never gave up the lead. As far as preventing runs goes, Alex White had an AWFUL game.
Who got the "loss" in last night's game? Was it Bronson Arroyo, who started for the Reds? He pitched just ONE inning and gave up seven hits, six runs (all eared), and struck out one batter. Giving up five home runs in five innings is bad, but Bronson Arroyo gave up THREE home runs and was the pitcher of record on just three outs. At least Alex White was the pitcher of record on 15 outs as he gave up seven runs. Arroyo did not, however, get the "loss" in last night's game. That went to Matt Maloney who pitched two innings and gave up two runs (one earned). Matt Maloney was unlucky enough to have pitched the fourth and fifth innings, meaning he was the "pitcher of record" when Colorado took the lead for good after five innings.
So, does Matt Maloney feel like the "loser" in last night's game? Does Alex White feel like the "winner" in last night's game? Bronson Arroyo pitched worse than anyone in that game, but he got the "no decision" because his offense kept his team in the game for the first five innings. Alex White was terrible for five innings, but his teammates scored enough runs to give him the "win." Of course, four Rockies pitchers came in after Alex White and pitched four shutout innings. Three of them settled for the wonderful "hold" stat. Bronson Arroyo was so bad that he could not contribute to more than three outs, but Matt Maloney pitched the wrong two innings and wound up with the "loss." At least he helped get six outs. Sam LeCure helped on just three outs while giving up two runs, and Aroldis Chapman gave up two runs and wasn't a part of a single out (he walked two batters and threw a wild pitch)!
Last night's game is certainly not an anomaly, and I'm not just cherry-picking a strange game to make the argument that a pitcher's "win" doesn't tell us much. Scan box scores every day and see if the "win" and the "loss" tell you much. C.C. Sabathia, for example, is a good pitcher, but he accumulates wins better than some pitchers because his team scores a lot of runs. Of his 19 wins, I count six games in which he gave up four or more runs. C.C. Sabathia is having a great year because he is pitching a lot of innings, has a great strikeout-to-walk ratio (216 K to 55 BB), doesn't give up the long ball (just 15 this year), and has a stellar 150 ERA+. The "win" total is high because C.C. Sabathia is not only a good pitcher, his team scores runs for him. Per nine innings, C.C. Sabathia gets 7.06 runs from his teammates, good enough for 13th in the American League. Don't fault C.C. Sabathia for his good run support, find his greatness in other, more meaningful, pitching stats.
Regarding last night's game in Colorado, I prefer to think that the Rockies got the "win" and the Reds got the "loss." The Rockies did, after all, score more runs than the Reds before their allotment of outs was used.
In physics, we concern ourselves with cause and effect. We want to understand why a hit baseball eventually returns to Earth just as must as we want to understand why an electron moves around the nucleus of an atom. Questions of why often involve a little philosophy because we use words like "gravity" and "electromagnetic force" to explain the baseball and the electron, respectively, even if we really don't understand what those interactions are. Richard Feynman once noted that we use the concept of "energy" all the time, but we really don't understand what energy is.
Perhaps we in science do better with how something works. We know how a baseball will move through the air because we have developed good models for gravity, air resistance, and the Magnus force that's responsible for a baseball curving. If we tuck philosophy under the rug, we feel good about our ability to describe why a baseball does what it does. We have a reasonable understanding of its motion (there are, however, still interesting questions to answer in the realm of baseball physics!).
Sabermetrics tries to understand the why in what happens in baseball. What can batters do as causes that best lead to the effect of runs on the scoreboard? What can pitchers do as causes that best lead to the effect of the opposing team not putting runs on the scoreboard? At the end of a game, the winner is determined by who has scored the most runs. How those runs were scored, be it by a bunch of home runs or via "small ball," is irrelevant.
Think about what a pitcher can control. He can strike out or walk a batter essentially all on his own. The manager or pitching coach might signal the catcher to signal the pitcher what pitch to throw and where to throw it, but the pitcher is the one who has to make the pitch. A pitcher can also give up a home run. The fielders can't do anything about a ball sailing into the stands. The pitcher can also pick runners off base and throw certain pitches that try to "induce" things like ground balls that might lead to double plays. Pitchers can also hit batters and throw wild pitches. But, really, a strikeout, a walk, and a home run are where the pitcher is most on his own. Everything else relies on the quality of the defense behind him, and subtle things like where managers have positioned the defense before a given player comes to bat also play a role. The bottom line is that a pitcher cannot "win" or "lose" a game all by himself; it's a team effort.
I am certainly not the first person to point out the absurdity of the "win" and "loss" stats in baseball. Though I've thought about it for more than two decades, this is the first time I've ever written about it in a public way. Many others have written on this topic, and much better than I will today. See, for example, what the great Joe Posnanski recently wrote by clicking here. Wins and loses might be fun stats and they have connections to baseball's storied past, but they do not say much about the cause and effect of what pitchers can do to prevent runs from being scored. As others have written, the "win" is not completely useless as a stat, especially over the length of a player's career. A pitcher who wins 300 games is a good (or great) pitcher, but the "win" stat doesn't tell the best story. Over the course of a long career, it might reveal some averaging over "tough luck" losses (say, 2-1) and "lucky" wins (say, 10-9). In the end, though, the career win total reflects how many games a pitcher pitched, how deep into games the pitcher was able to go (five innings needed for a starting pitcher to get a win), and how successful the pitcher's teams were. Greatness can be hidden from those who focus too hard on wins. Just click here to read what Rich Lederer has written since 2003 about the insanely long wait Bert Blyleven endured before getting the Hall of Fame call this past January.
Okay, back to last night's Rockies win over the Reds. Alex White got the "win" for the Rockies, despite giving up eight hits, seven runs (six of them "earned"), a walk, and FIVE HOME RUNS. He struck out just one batter. He got the "win" because (1) he pitched five innings and (2) the score was 8-7 Rockies after the fifth inning ended, and the Rockies never gave up the lead. As far as preventing runs goes, Alex White had an AWFUL game.
Who got the "loss" in last night's game? Was it Bronson Arroyo, who started for the Reds? He pitched just ONE inning and gave up seven hits, six runs (all eared), and struck out one batter. Giving up five home runs in five innings is bad, but Bronson Arroyo gave up THREE home runs and was the pitcher of record on just three outs. At least Alex White was the pitcher of record on 15 outs as he gave up seven runs. Arroyo did not, however, get the "loss" in last night's game. That went to Matt Maloney who pitched two innings and gave up two runs (one earned). Matt Maloney was unlucky enough to have pitched the fourth and fifth innings, meaning he was the "pitcher of record" when Colorado took the lead for good after five innings.
So, does Matt Maloney feel like the "loser" in last night's game? Does Alex White feel like the "winner" in last night's game? Bronson Arroyo pitched worse than anyone in that game, but he got the "no decision" because his offense kept his team in the game for the first five innings. Alex White was terrible for five innings, but his teammates scored enough runs to give him the "win." Of course, four Rockies pitchers came in after Alex White and pitched four shutout innings. Three of them settled for the wonderful "hold" stat. Bronson Arroyo was so bad that he could not contribute to more than three outs, but Matt Maloney pitched the wrong two innings and wound up with the "loss." At least he helped get six outs. Sam LeCure helped on just three outs while giving up two runs, and Aroldis Chapman gave up two runs and wasn't a part of a single out (he walked two batters and threw a wild pitch)!
Last night's game is certainly not an anomaly, and I'm not just cherry-picking a strange game to make the argument that a pitcher's "win" doesn't tell us much. Scan box scores every day and see if the "win" and the "loss" tell you much. C.C. Sabathia, for example, is a good pitcher, but he accumulates wins better than some pitchers because his team scores a lot of runs. Of his 19 wins, I count six games in which he gave up four or more runs. C.C. Sabathia is having a great year because he is pitching a lot of innings, has a great strikeout-to-walk ratio (216 K to 55 BB), doesn't give up the long ball (just 15 this year), and has a stellar 150 ERA+. The "win" total is high because C.C. Sabathia is not only a good pitcher, his team scores runs for him. Per nine innings, C.C. Sabathia gets 7.06 runs from his teammates, good enough for 13th in the American League. Don't fault C.C. Sabathia for his good run support, find his greatness in other, more meaningful, pitching stats.
Regarding last night's game in Colorado, I prefer to think that the Rockies got the "win" and the Reds got the "loss." The Rockies did, after all, score more runs than the Reds before their allotment of outs was used.
25 August 2011
Interview on iTunes
On 28 July 2011, I was interviewed by Bruce Berglund of New Books in Sports, which is part of the New Books Network. A brief story behind the interview may be found here. The 62-minute interview became available at the New Books in Sports website on 24 August 2011. It is also available on iTunes here.
The interview was a lot of fun! Bruce and I discussed portions of my book, including Flutie's famous Hail Mary pass, laterals in American Football, soccer aerodynamics associated with Beckham's free kicks, Beamon's famous Olympic long jump, modeling the Tour de France, and what happens when a diver like Louganis enters the water (see my book cover). We also talked about topics outside my book, like baseball flight physics and the controversies surrounding the Jabulani ball used in the 2010 World Cup. I had a little time to talk about the 2011 Tour de France.
We closed the interview with discussion about my current work, namely my investigations into boundary-layer separation on a soccer ball. As I mentioned in the interview, if there are young people out there wishing to do research in sports physics, think about studying in the physics department at Lynchburg College.
The interview was a lot of fun! Bruce and I discussed portions of my book, including Flutie's famous Hail Mary pass, laterals in American Football, soccer aerodynamics associated with Beckham's free kicks, Beamon's famous Olympic long jump, modeling the Tour de France, and what happens when a diver like Louganis enters the water (see my book cover). We also talked about topics outside my book, like baseball flight physics and the controversies surrounding the Jabulani ball used in the 2010 World Cup. I had a little time to talk about the 2011 Tour de France.
We closed the interview with discussion about my current work, namely my investigations into boundary-layer separation on a soccer ball. As I mentioned in the interview, if there are young people out there wishing to do research in sports physics, think about studying in the physics department at Lynchburg College.
23 August 2011
EARTHQUAKE!!!
I just experienced the second earthquake of my life. This one was bigger than the one I felt about seven years ago. Click here for a link to the United States Geological Survey data of the Virginia earthquake of 23 August 2011. The earthquake's magnitude was 5.9. Just like the logarithmic scale I mentioned for sound loudness in my last post, earthquake magnitudes are also on a logarithmic scale.
21 August 2011
JOURNEY!!!
I needed a break after the Tour de France ended. My family took a fortnight-long holiday in the first half of August; I only got back to work last Thursday (18 August). This is my first post since returning from holiday, and there will be very little physics in this one.
On 5 September I will turn 41. My wonderful wife, Susan, treated me to an early birthday present yesterday (20 August). She took me to my very first rock concert! To top it all off, I got to see my favorite band, Journey. We saw Night Ranger and Foreigner open for Journey at the Time Warner Cable Music Pavilion at Walnut Creek in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was one of the best nights of my life! We had great seats -- eighth row in the second section of reserved seating.
Night Ranger played a short set, including, of course, Sister Christian. Foreigner was fantastic! They played a bunch of classic hits. By the time Journey got on the stage, I was acclimated to my first rock concert. The noise was deafening at times. Loudness levels were certainly above 100 dB. Recall that loudness is measured on a logarithmic scale. Pain at all frequencies occurs around 130 dB. I wish I had a sound meter with me last night, but I would have been kicked out for being too nerdy! Sound levels surely approached pain threshold a few times at our concert. I now have a first-hand feeling for why so many rock musicians suffer hearing damage.
When asked about physics and sports, I always tell people to enjoy the sporting moment first, and then think about the physics later (even if just a minute later). Physics is meant to enhance our enjoyment of the natural world; it is not meant to displace one's emotional experience of life. I thought about sound levels only after our concert was over. During the concert, I was mesmerized watching and listening to Journey play. Seeing and hearing Neal Schon play a guitar in front me is something I will never forget. At 57 the man's axe-work is still top notch.
After seeing scores of classical music concerts, I have now seen a rock concert. So what if I did not see my first rock concert until I was nearly 41?!? Better late than never, right?
I plan to add more sports physics posts in the near future. For now, my ears need a little rest. One piece of advice I can offer: SEE JOURNEY LIVE IN CONCERT!!!
On 5 September I will turn 41. My wonderful wife, Susan, treated me to an early birthday present yesterday (20 August). She took me to my very first rock concert! To top it all off, I got to see my favorite band, Journey. We saw Night Ranger and Foreigner open for Journey at the Time Warner Cable Music Pavilion at Walnut Creek in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was one of the best nights of my life! We had great seats -- eighth row in the second section of reserved seating.
Night Ranger played a short set, including, of course, Sister Christian. Foreigner was fantastic! They played a bunch of classic hits. By the time Journey got on the stage, I was acclimated to my first rock concert. The noise was deafening at times. Loudness levels were certainly above 100 dB. Recall that loudness is measured on a logarithmic scale. Pain at all frequencies occurs around 130 dB. I wish I had a sound meter with me last night, but I would have been kicked out for being too nerdy! Sound levels surely approached pain threshold a few times at our concert. I now have a first-hand feeling for why so many rock musicians suffer hearing damage.
When asked about physics and sports, I always tell people to enjoy the sporting moment first, and then think about the physics later (even if just a minute later). Physics is meant to enhance our enjoyment of the natural world; it is not meant to displace one's emotional experience of life. I thought about sound levels only after our concert was over. During the concert, I was mesmerized watching and listening to Journey play. Seeing and hearing Neal Schon play a guitar in front me is something I will never forget. At 57 the man's axe-work is still top notch.
After seeing scores of classical music concerts, I have now seen a rock concert. So what if I did not see my first rock concert until I was nearly 41?!? Better late than never, right?
I plan to add more sports physics posts in the near future. For now, my ears need a little rest. One piece of advice I can offer: SEE JOURNEY LIVE IN CONCERT!!!
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