Deflategate: Could Physics Be at Fault?

By Jocelyn Duffy / 412-268-9982 By now, most people in America have heard about "Deflategate," where the New England Patriots are alleged to have used underinflated footballs during the AFC championship game against the Indianapolis Colts. While some believe the Patriots footballs were tampered with, others have suggested that a change in temperature may have caused the Patriots' footballs to lose pressure. Carnegie Mellon Physics Professor Gregg Franklin explains how physics could have played a role in football's latest controversy. "It's pretty simple physics," Franklin said. If you pump up a bicycle tire using air from a warm room and then take it outside on a cold winter day, you'll find that the pressure in the tire decreases as the air in the tire cools off. The air pressure in a football is no different. "If a football is inflated to the minimum pressure allowed by the NFL-12.5 pounds per square inch-using warm air, the football's pressure will drop below this minimum value as the air cools." Could this possibly be part of the answer to Deflategate? Franklin said that, by rule, a decrease in temperature will correspond to a decrease in pressure.