Can the rotation of the Earth affect the scoring of field goals? Neil deGrasse Tyson discusses on SportSciQ
Just in time for Thanksgiving! On this episode Neil, Chuck and Gary discuss how the earth’s rotation and the lack of fans have an impact on field goals and scoring.
Video Transcript
NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: People often think of field goals as being harder for being farther away, but that's not the main problem.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
GARY O'REILLY: Field goals in the NFL can make or break a game, particularly long distance ones. But once that ball gets snapped and you hold it, what sort of difference does the angle of the player holding it make?
NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: I can't speak with authority on this, but I would bet different kickers have different preferred angles. But let me just say your foot it has around front to it and the ball is round. And when round things hit round things, a fraction of an inch can make a difference between something that careens off to the left or goes too high or is exactly where you want it to be.
CHUCK NICE: De-- what was his name, Dempsey? He had a clubfoot?
NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: Right, right. So he had a birth defect and he had a special shoe fitted to his foot. And the front side of a shoe was completely flat. So he hit around ball with a flat surface.
CHUCK NICE: Is that an advantage?
NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: Completely an advantage! Because that removes the precisional uncertainty between around surface hitting another round surface.
GARY O'REILLY: Let's look at the planetary rotation. Does that--
NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: Oh yeah! Yeah!
GARY O'REILLY: Does that not engage with a field kick?
NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: So if you have north-south stadium, and many are, if it's oriented that way, and the kicker kicks the ball, depending on how high and how long it's in the air, the rotation of the Earth can have a significant effect on its trajectory towards the goalpost. If you're trying to make a 50 yard field goal, that's far away enough and the ball is airborne long enough for the rotation of the Earth to deflect it to the right by a third of an inch. Cincinnati Bengals against I forgot who was it-- Seattle Seahawks? In overtime, sudden death kick. And the kick went up and everybody's hearts stops, and no one breathes. And there it tumbles, and it hit to left upright, and went in for the win, but kind of barely went in.
Then I tweeted, I said, this game was won assisted by the rotation of the Earth. And that force that makes it happen is the same force that sends hurricanes rotating counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern.
Oh, by the way, talk about wind-- you know, they're playing games in empty stadiums now. People, the fact that you are this thing sitting there in a chair and you're not smooth, any wind that would otherwise circulate unimpeded among the seats has friction against the fans. You would expect wind speeds and wind gusts, especially gusts, to be higher than a perfectly cleaned out stadium than in one that has 50,000 screaming fans. The direction the flags are going is not always the direction the wind is blowing down on the field.
So what you should have in a modern stadium is atmometers throughout the stadium. These are the wind speed detectors that you can say, oh, it's 12 miles an hour over there, five miles an hour over here. Let me hit the ball in this direction or kick the ball that way.
CHUCK NICE: I would just love to see Neil as a field goal kicker running out on the field just going, I'm gonna need a protractor!
NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: [LAUGHS]
A protractor!
CHUCK NICE: Two atmometers, please!