amarshal2 said:
They presented a range on the timing. It was not favorable to the Patriots.
They didn't present a range on the temperature but I don't understand how that would have addressed the gap. I've looked at the weather on the field that night and their outside temperature estimates are fair and reasonable. The locker room temp doesn't seem to matter that much given it was the same and the gap.
The biggest assumptions I see are the starting pressures in the footballs after Anderson approved them. I'm a little skeptical given the one sided nature of the report but overall it's hard to say I think he's lying or mistaken.
The discussions about weather effects on pressure have been filled with half-informed idiocy since the beginning of this, and a whole shitload of "three blind men and the elephant" type conclusions from people who know just enough to be convincing while still being wrong.
Rather than contribute to the noise with my own analysis, I will simply point out one glaring hole in the Exponent models/assumptions:
they don't specify or account for any difference between wet-bulb vs dry-bulb temperature.
Take off your shoes, and pour some water on one of your socks. Which foot feels colder? The evaporative cooling effect of the wet sock will accelerate the rate of heat-transfer between your wet foot and air, relative to the dry foot and the air. This is not just a perceptual difference: if you measure air temperature using two thermometers, one with a "dry" sensing bulb, and the other with a wet sock placed over the sensing bulb, you will get two different temperatures, possibly significantly different. See Wikipedia or some such for details, but this is an absolutely basic factor in things like HVAC engineering (and exactly the kind of thing that is commonly overlooked by scientists or researchers working in academia or the like).
So using the outside air temperature as reported by the weatherman or whatever is not the correct way to model the surface temperature of a wet football, nor the effects of heat-energy on air-pressure inside the football.
But more to the point, as someone said up-thread, the science procedurals
really don't matter, because of the circular foundations of the conclusions: The report cites the Exponent analysis as the basis for its conclusions, while the Exponent analysis cites Wells as the source for the input assumptions. In other words, the report is saying, "Our conclusions are correct, if our assumptions are correct."
This is not independent, it's not objective, and it's not how you do science. It wouldn't even pass a basic engineering review. This is a (very good) example of advocacy. They are making an argument, not trying to objectively determine facts.
Most especially,
"reasonable assumptions" are not proof, nor even evidence. Since we are posting on a Red Sox message board, it would be reasonable for you to assume that I am a Red Sox fan, and that I therefore watched that game last night, and following that, that I was probably awake until at least about 10pm, since that's about when the game ended. That's a perfectly-reasonable scenario, based on perfectly-reasonable starting assumptions. But it's not even remotely close to "proof" that I was awake at 10pm. The fact that the assumptions are "reasonable" does not disprove the reality that I actually went to bed about 9pm, because I had an early appointment this morning.
The sciencey-sounding stuff in the report is making a reasonable-sounding case, and presenting a reasonable-sounding narrative. But it's neither objective nor independent, and from an engineering perspective, the methodology and assumptions have significant flaws.
The conclusions may be right or may be wrong, but they are not proved by the barrage of technical-sounding graphs and charts and numbers supplied in the appendix.
This is the engineering equivalent of a sales presentation, or better yet, a grand-jury hearing. Only the prosecutor gets to speak, only one side is presented, and no cross-examination is allowed. It is very easy to present a convincing and reasonable-sounding argument, when there is no opportunity for rebuttal. In a trial court, the Patriots would have the opportunity to present their side, to call their own experts, to question the technical-sounding sand thrown up in the air. In a scientific paper, peer-review would have (should have?) caught the sloppiness and circular reasoning of the models. In an engineering study of any importance, the client's own review engineers would have sent this back as unacceptable, or at best, as incomplete.
