In the NY Times' extensive discussion of the New England Patriots and Deflategate, one of the newest articles has extensive quotations from Steward PhD alumnus Charles Liu, now on the faculty at the College of Staten Island and an Associate at Hayden Planetarium. The article can be found HERE.
A couple of pithy quotations from the article follow:
"... “Just because you’re not a scientist does not mean you can’t know what to do,” Liu said. “It’s kind of like saying, Well, I see somebody about to burn down your house, but since I’m not a firefighter, I don’t know whether I should stop them or not.”
...“If you let out 2 p.s.i. from the ball, it is as if you removed 400 pounds of force pushing outward from the football,” Liu said. “If you let out 1.5 p.s.i. from the ball, it’s as if you removed 300 pounds of force pushing outward from the football.”"
"Liu mentioned Muhammad Wilkerson, a 6-foot-4-inch, 315-pound defensive lineman for the Jets, to illustrate the point. If Wilkerson were to stand on a ball, the leather would bulge out on the ball’s sides, growing taut, and would be much harder to grip. Take Wilkerson off the ball, and it would become easier to grip. “That is what letting 1.5 or 2 p.s.i. out of the ball means,” Liu said. (I tried the experiment in the office with a basketball, with an editor gripping the sides of the ball. He agreed that it was easier to hold on to once my 220 pounds had hopped off.)..."
Finally, the Boston Globe published a Boston-based view of the same HERE.
Bill Nye the Science Guy weighed in HERE.
/expert-witness-deflategate-steward-phd-alumnus-charles-liu
