My take on this... from a geeks point of view; Given the conditions of the game, a ball which meets specifications in the locker room could easily lose enough pressure to be considered under-inflated. Some math: Guy-Lussacs Law describes the relationship between the pressure of a confined ideal gas and its temperature. For the sake of argument, we will assume that the football is a rigid enough container (unless a ball is massively deflated, its volume wont change). The relationship is (P1/T1) = (P2/T2), where P is the pressure and T is the temperature in Kelvins. The balls are inflated to between 12.5 and 13.5 psi at a temperature of 70 degrees Farenheit (294.1 K). Lets assume an average ball has a pressure of 13 psi. Since these are initial values, we will call them P1 and T1. The game time temperature was 49 degrees F (278 K). We are attempting to solve for the new pressure at this temperature, P2. We plug everything into the equation and get (13/294.1) = (P2/278). At the game time temperature, the balls would have a pressure of 12.3 psi, below league specifications.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 23:42:49 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015