APPLETON, WIS. — What does Newton’s Laws of Motion have to do with playing linebacker? Why isn’t helium used in footballs to give them better hang time? A University of Nebraska scientist explains the connections between science and sport in a Lawrence University address.
Timothy Gay, professor of physics at Nebraska, presents “Football Physics” Tuesday, Oct. 21 at 7:30 p.m. in Youngchild Hall, Room 121. The event is free and open to the public.
A former offensive tackle at Cal Tech and a one-time manager of the football team at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., that had three-time Super Bowl winning coach Bill Belichick on its roster, Gay began giving video physics lessons in 1999 to the sellout football crowds at the University of Nebraska via Memorial Stadium’s giant scoreboard screens.
Through his in-game video lessons, Gay offered scientific insights by explaining how Newton’s Laws of Motion applied to blocking and tackling, what projectile motion had to do with kicking and punting, the connection between kinematics and open-field running, and what the ideal gas law had to do with filling footballs with air instead of helium.
NFL Films hired Gay in 2001in to write and appear in a series of 5-minute television segments for the show “NFL Blast!,” a half-hour program shown in 190 foreign countries to familiarize audiences with American football.
Gay’s work has been featured on “ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings,” ESPN’s “Cold Pizza,” as well as in stories that appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post, and People magazine, among others.
A member of the physics department at the University of Nebraska since 1993, Gay is the author of the book “Football Physics,” which was recently reprinted in a second edition as “The Physics of Football.”
