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Comment by jsyedidia | Hacker News Reader

No the BC professor speculated that they over-inflated them. I speculated that they prepared the balls outdoors. The reason for the speculation is that I know the ideal gas law holds. Therefore, if the Colts balls did not deflate when they took them to a colder temperature, there must be an explanation. I think the likeliest explanation is that the gas inside the balls had already equilibrated to an outdoors temperature.

Many people are speculating that the Patriots cheated on no grounds except that the balls deflated when taken outdoors, which is exactly what you expect from the laws of physics.

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It's not like this is the first time it's ever been cold outside. The New England Patriots play a lot of football, yes? They often do so during the winter months, no?

It's exactly what you'd expect from the laws of physics, which is precisely why even if the situation you suggest is the case, the Patriots still knew that the balls would deflate due to the aforementioned extremely predictable laws of physics, and they still cheated.

If they didn't know, then incompetence is no excuse. They cheated because they didn't know about the ideal gas law? They still cheated.

Maybe they didn't know about the ideal gas law. It seems like very few other people do. Maybe they did know about the ideal gas law and took advantage of it. In any case, they followed all the rules "to the letter", at least if you believe they did what they said they did. Most people say that when you follow all the rules, you are not "cheating".

No, people are speculating the Pats cheated under the assumption that both teams inflated their balls to a similar psi, under the same inflation conditions, and for some reason the Pats balls (at a home game) reacted differently to the same weather conditions.

Let's take it as a given that the Patriots balls deflated and the Colts balls didn't (we don't actually know that for certain, but I think it's reasonable to assume it's true). We know that if the Patriots prepared their balls indoors and worked on them up until the moment they gave them to the refs as they claimed they did and as is legal, the ideal gas law predicts a deflation of the Patriots' balls approximately equal to what is being rumored.

So the thing making people speculate the Patriots cheated is that the Colts' balls didn't deflate, combined with a lack of understanding of the ideal gas law, or a refusal to take it into account.

I take it as a given that the ideal gas law holds. That means that for the Colts' balls not to deflate when going from indoors to outdoors they must have prepared them differently than the Patriots. A simple explanation is that the gas inside their balls had already equilibrated to the outdoors temperatures before the balls were given to the refs (e.g. the Colts threw them around outside). It is speculation, but it seems to me more reasonable than the assumption that the Patriots' and Colts' balls both managed to evade the workings of the ideal gas law, and the Patriots' balls deflated because the Patriots cheated.

under the assumption that both teams inflated their balls to a similar psi, under the same inflation conditions

There are zero reasons to believe those assumptions are true.

or some reason the Pats balls (at a home game) reacted differently to the same weather conditions

All we know is that the Pats balls were under the limit and the Colts balls met the limit. To my knowledge, there has been nothing released/leaked about any decrease in pressure in the Colts balls, just that they were within the rules.

The Pats may or may not have done something untoward, but the only reason so many people seem to think it's a slam dunk is that they're misinterpreting the information that's out there.

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