StarTalk Radio - #ICYMI - Extended Classic: The Immaculate Reception

Episode Date: December 21, 2017

Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice turn to physics to unravel the mystery of the Immaculate Reception, the most famous, controversial play in NFL history. With Neil Tyson, QB Ryan Fitzpatrick, John Eric Goff, and sports writer Jim Brennan. Now with Chuck, Gary and John talking confirmation bias, preventing Deflategates, and football on the Moon. Don’t miss an episode of Playing with Science. Subscribe to our channels on:TuneIn: tunein.com/playingwithscienceApple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/playing-with-science/id1198280360GooglePlay Music: https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/Iimke5bwpoh2nb25swchmw6kzjqSoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/startalk_playing-with-scienceStitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/startalk/playing-with-scienceNOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/extended-classic-the-immaculate-reception/ Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Nice. And we are playing with science. Today, we are talking about the most famous play in the history of American football. So true. Isn't it? A play that still divides the opinions of sports fans almost half a century later. A play that is shrouded in more mysteries and conspiracy theories than a presidential

election. Yet, we can solve and explain those mysteries by using science. Oh, yes, we can. The immaculate reception was a moment of desperation in the final seconds of a postseason game that became the turning point in one NFL franchise's history whilst turning the other into a battle against the rest of the world that is still going on. And to bring in the physics and help unlock the core of science is Professor Eric Goff, who is a professor at Lynchburg College and the author of Gold Medal Physics,

and a sports writer who is in studio with us, Jim Brennan. So let's get some numbers straight, shall we? Seven and six, the score, Raiders up by one point. It is the fourth quarter. It's a fourth and down. There are 26 seconds left. It's a fourth and down. There are 26 seconds left.

There are men on the sidelines built like mountains who are too scared to watch. This is the point of adrenaline. This is a point of fear. It's the moment you live for. It is an AFC playoff game. And then it all happens. What do we do about that, Chuck? I'll tell you what we do about it.

Let's take a listen to what actually happened. Last chance for the Steelers. Batchoff trying to get away. And his pass is broken up by Tatum. It's gone. Frank O'Hara has it. And he's over. What?

Frank O'Hara has it. And he's over. What? Frank O'Hara. Grabbed the ball and it was a touchdown. Five seconds to go. He grabbed it with five seconds to go and scored. When you talk about Christmas miracles, here's the miracle of all miracles. Watch this one now. Bradshaw is lucky to even get rid of the ball.

He shoots it out. Jack Tatum deflects it right into the hands of Harris. And he sets off. And the big 230-pound rookie slipped away from Warren and scored. Wow. You know what? I'm sorry. I mean, this game is God knows how long ago, but it's still exciting.

There was nothing to see. The ball bounced off a couple guys. There was nothing to be seen after that. And then suddenly there was something to be seen. Franco Harris comes out of the black. Right. And scores. It's amazing.

It is really amazing. I mean, and- It has divided so many people, whether they're Steelers or Raiders. But as I said in the introduction, there is a way for us to solve this by the use of science. So the moment arrives,

we have a ball hitting a player. Now, the argument depends on which side of the sidelines you're on. So, you know, the big controversy is, one, did the ball bounce off of Frenchy Fuqua, which would have caused one, that would have been an illegal play. Yes, at that time. At that time, the ruling would have been two offensive players touch the ball in succession. Therefore, the play is now dead because that's an illegal catch. That rule no longer exists in football. You can actually tip the ball as much as you want now. And, you know,

if five players tip the ball and the ball is still in the air, as long as it doesn't touch the ground, it's a live ball. You can pluck it out of the air and either run it into a touchdown or run it back for a pick six. It doesn't make a difference. But at that time, so from a physics standpoint, Eric, here's the question. Is there a way to view this video from angles of incidence, looking at, like you said, the ball leaving his hand at about 50 miles an hour, are there scenarios that we can break down that would tell us the likelihood, maybe not definitively, but the likelihood of who that ball really bounced off of? Well, just to give you some numbers, so the pass took anywhere between 1.6 and 1.7 seconds to go from Bradshaw to the point of contact with the players.

Now, you got Tatum and Fuqua there, and they're going to be moving toward the ball, because what's happening is they're having to transfer some momentum from themselves to the ball in order for it to get far enough for Harris to pick it up. If they were stationary, the ball's not going to bounce far enough for Harris to pick it up. So what happens is you get the ball is going to slow down a little bit from air resistance after Bradshaw threw it. So maybe it's going about 46 miles an hour when it hits the player. When it rebounds, now I'm analyzing this video frame by frame, but the video is a little fuzzy. It's a little tough to tell the angles. It's going about 25 to 30 miles an hour on the rebound. So some of that energy has been lost with the collision. Now what happens is you got Tatum and Fuqua coming in and they're going

to hit the ball moving in the opposite direction of the ball. So they're giving it a good kick backwards. So that's going to give it enough of a kick to get to Franco Harris coming down. Now, that momentum transfer is tough to tell whether it's one or two players, how fast they're moving right before the impact. It could easily have been just Tatum hitting the ball, but it's really tough to tell from the video and even from the physics analysis whether or not Frenchy Fukua had enough of a play into the ball as well. So let me hold you there, Eric. There was a professor of emeritus at Carnegie Mellon, John Fetkovich in 2004, analyzed this thing back to front and back again and he used brick walls

he replicated the trajectory and all sorts of things and he came to the conclusion based, and I think he uses the term conversation of momentum which I've taken a shine to that the ball must have bounced off of Tatum because it comes back down the field

rather than just bouncing up because he he was sort of working on the fact that Fuqua goes laterally and Tatum's running towards the ball towards the ball so what sort of equation if that's if that's his analysis and research are we dealing with in terms of why the ball bounced as far as it did because Fetkevich couldn't himself replicate that sort of bounce well the the brick wall means the stationary target I was talking about earlier so if it hit a player not moving it would not have bounced far enough for Harris to have picked it up so what you need is a linear momentum in the opposite direction of the football to kick it back. So what happened was the player that's making contact with it, even though Fuqua is coming in laterally, if Tatum hits Fuqua slightly before the ball gets there, he can direct Fuqua's linear momentum back toward the ball.

Ah, so therein lies the rub. The fact is that if the collision is with Fuqua and then Fuqua collides with the ball, you'll get that same conservation of momentum kicking the ball back to Franco Harris. So it's possible that it still could have been Fuqua who hit the ball. I mean, it's definitely Tatum is the one responsible for the direction the ball is I mean, it's definitely Tatum is the one responsible for the direction

the ball is going to be deflected. Right. But what's hard to tell in the video is whether he is making contact with Fuqua just as the ball is coming in. Gotcha. So, I mean, he's definitely the one responsible for the way the ball is moving, but it's hard to tell whether Fuqua came in slightly before the ball or not. Okay. Okay. So now what is the Newton's law involved in this particular, is there an actual scientific term that, what is that? Sure. So conservation of linear momentum means that you add up all the little mass times velocities. So the ball has a mass and a velocity. Fuqua has a mass and a velocity, and so does Tatum. And as long as there's no external force at the time of that collision,

and we take all the other forces as being really small compared to the size of that collision force with the ball and the pads, then the momentum coming in has got to match what's coming out. So if the ball is coming in with a certain momentum and the players, the Tatum-Fuqua combination are coming in the other direction with a certain momentum that sum total has got to be the same before and after the collision. So with the ball going the other direction

that meant the net linear momentum was going back toward Harris. So it's almost like a Newton's cradle in the sense you've got two objects coming in at one and then pop out the other end goes the ball into the welcoming hands of Franco Harris. Or I got that wrong. No, you have it exactly right. A Newton's cradle would have those little metal spheres that some of the CEOs watch when they're kind of bored. Right. And so you've got the ball coming in and it bounces off.

Another ball will bounce off on the other end that's that's exactly a linear momentum conservation you're talking about the clacking balls like that sit on a desk and one ball is on a page they're all on the pendulum one swings hits three other balls that stay in the exact same position and then the fourth ball on the very end takes off and then and then that repeats itself back and forth back and forth that's that's what we're talking about here that's right you need to use some energy as well to analyze that but that's exactly what happens would you eric looking at it from your point of view as a physicist as a sports fan go with their decision on that moment um sure i mean

keep in mind the ball was also deflected uh a downward trajectory, so it's heading toward the ground. That makes it even tougher for the referees to see what's going on. Harris is running with a full head of steam when he gets it. If he had been five yards farther back on the play, he's not going to be able to catch that ball. He's at the exact right place, moving at the right speed, and when that ball collides with him, he's at the right place at the right time to get it. So, you know, it's just a bang-bang play. I mean, the ball's only in the air about six-tenths to seven-tenths of a second after that deflection. That, you know, the referees have to divert their eyes from what's going on at the collision between Tatum and Fuqua.

Now they have to follow the ball back to where Harris is and he's already running and getting the ball. So we watch it in slow motion. It seems easy for us to see what's going on. But, you know, put yourself in the place of a referee with all that chaos going on, trying to follow that play. It's a challenge. Absolutely. Yeah. Six tenths of a second, man a second. Man, when you put it that way, you've got to be almost superhuman to look at that and get a really correct call. But with that in mind, when you said everything had to be in the right place at the right time for this play to even happen, that brings us to a clip where our own Neil deGrasse Tyson actually sat down with the quarterback of the new york jets uh ryan fitzpatrick and uh you know asked him about this particular play we've been trying to pull quarterbacks on their knowledge or memory of a reaction to the famous immaculate

reception um do you do you guys talk do you go in the back room and talk about that is it was it just a bit of inspiration how does it land on you and your and your soul as an athlete um i thought i mean it's amazing play and i wish that i could get some of that luck you know because that uh you know it was a terryshaw. Yeah. Terry Bradshaw to Franco Harris. Yeah. Off of somebody's shoulder off the big head and then he catches it basically on the ground and outruns four people. And I mean, there's so many amazing things that had to happen exactly right for that play

to work. Um, so you candidly recognize the role of luck in that. Yes. Yes. I don't know if it was much of anything else. Yes. Hence, immaculate reception rather than skillful reception. Yes, exactly. Well, I think that's great. We've got a current NFL player with enough about him to respect the history, even though he kind of sits on, you know what, really lucky. And speaking of luck, this is something I just like to ask every scientist. Do you believe in luck? No. I have yet to meet a scientist who says, I believe in luck. Why not, man? Tell me. I mean,

I know why most scientists answer this question, but I want to hear yours, because I just find it fascinating that I've yet to meet a scientist. When you say, do you believe in luck? I have not met one scientist who said, of course. Who doesn't? We're constrained by the laws of physics. And I mean, luck is simply what the word we use for a low probability occurrence. I mean, if you win the lottery, you say you got lucky. Well, that's the word you're referring to hitting a one in a 50 million shot or whatever the

probability is. Somebody's going to hit it if you play all the numbers. So, you know, it's not a, it's just luck is just the word that we're using in the layman's sense to describe things that are very low probability and occurrence. Awesome. I like it. All right. So, no such thing as luck, but there is such a thing as a break. We are going to take a first one. Right. Two questions. Firstly, who was the head coach of the Raiders on the day of the Immaculate Reception? the head coach of the Raiders, on the day of the Immaculate Reception. And secondly, how many Super Bowls did the Pittsburgh Steelers win

on the back of the Immaculate Reception during, only during, the decade of the 70s? Right, we are going to leave you a moment to think about that. And good luck thinking about that. Yeah, no such thing. leave you a moment to think about that. And good luck thinking about that. Yeah, no such thing.

So, when we come back, we will have a rather special guest by the name of Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, and we will be discussing some more science. We'll, of course, have Professor Eric Goff and Jim Brennan, who's with us in the studio. So, do not go away. Welcome back. I'm Gary O''reilly and i'm chuck nice and this is playing with science and today we are talking about the immaculate reception but before we go on to the most probably the most important and famous play in af. Answers to questions I set before the break. The coach of the Raiders on the day, the man himself, Mr. John Madden,

will be your answer for that one. And second question. How many Super Bowls do the Steelers win in the 70s post-immaculate reception? Count all. 1, 2, 3, 4, 74, 75, 78, and 79. Whoa. That's called a dynasty. That is definitely called a dynasty.

It's called a dynasty. And the steel curtain was locked down for sure. And Steeler Nation was born. Dun, dun, dun. Yes. So that's the answers to that dealt with. As I said before the break, we will have His Royal Highness Neil deGrasse Tyson joining us in the show. We still have Jim Brennan with us. And of course, Eric

Goff, professor of physics at Lynchburg College, still all in the mix. So it's a rather crowded house. The whole thing about immaculate reception is that it sort of contains every facet of myth, theory, legend, conspiracy theory, fact, science, and a little bit of sport thrown in. One of many of the conspiracy theories surrounding the Immaculate Reception is what happens after Franco Harris runs in this touchdown, that once the officials go to the dugout, the phone, and nobody knows who rang who, whether it comes from the press box or from the dugout. And there was a replay with Art McNally,

the supervisor from the NFL. People say total fabrication. Others say that, you know, McNally told them, what did you see? Then go with it. Just get your guys together and go with it. But it just adds another layer to the myth to the legend to the mystery absolutely absolutely and then you know there's even one story and you

know i'm this is i'm sure another fabrication yeah where uh you know one of the officials called in that same press box that the phone call was to the police to see whether enough cops to get us out of here exactly like are there enough cops to get us out of here? Exactly. Like, are there enough cops to get us out of here? Well, you got six. We got six cops to get you out. Oh, well, then it's six points for Pittsburgh. So, you know... And the thing is, they're saying that

Art McNally watches a TV replay, and that's how the whole game is decided. Now, that is what... Who's this from the Oakland Tribune? A guy called Joe Gordon, who says that's a total fabrication. So, I'm guessing a guy from the Oakland Tribune, a guy called Joe Gordon, who says that's a total fabrication. So I'm guessing a guy from the Oakland Tribune is in the press box at the time, so we've got to go with his opinion on that one.

And by the way, I would think he would be a little biased towards Oakland, right? Yeah. So, I mean, that's pretty credible as far as I'm concerned. Jim, this happens in 1972. Instant replay doesn't come in until way, way later. We're barely in the television age in 1972. Instant replay doesn't come in until way, way later. We're barely in the television age in 1972. Yeah.

So it should have been the moment where everybody went, wow, this is what we can do with technology. We should be using it, incorporating it,

but it doesn't. It doesn't happen. It goes 30 more years. It goes 30 more years. Do you think that this play might have been part of the resistance to go? Because people were just like, see now, if you had done that when you were supposed to,

Oakland would have won or what have you. It might have played an initial role, an infancy role in replay, but it wasn't until another 20 years later where they said, we're seeing at home what's going on on the field. Slow motion. Every little detail. Freeze frame. And it's embarrassing that we're not

getting it right, official-wise. Eric, because I don't know how many cameras in a game, maybe 20. As a physicist, you're looking at the geometry of those cameras, you'll be thinking, where do I get my best shots? Is there a kind of theory that allows the cameras to grab the best moments to get cameras, you'll be thinking, where do I get my best shots? Is there a kind of theory that allows

the cameras to grab the best moments to get the best analysis and not in the end undermine the officials? And by the way, just as an addendum to that same question, Eric, do the cameras, because you're looking at it through a lens, do they distort the play of what you're seeing on screen in any way, shape, or form? Sure. I mean, you see the little tiny cameras that are in the pylons in the end zone. And when the ball is coming in very close, the closer it gets to the camera, then you can have more of a kind of a distorted look of the image. And absolutely, that plays a role.

The cameras sometimes are moving. You have a camera on a guy wire over the field. And as the camera is moving, you have to take that into consideration when you're watching the replay. Sometimes you have a cameraman actually holding a camera moving. Even the ones that are stationary that are holding it with their hand can jiggle a little bit. And sometimes that can even influence the video that you see. Oh, wow. So the one that's suspended is the Spydercam.

I know I didn't come up with that, man. Don't look at me like that. Then you've got the Steadicam, the big guy all braced in with the framework who's running along. How long do you think before we get drones? And as a physicist, are they going to be the answer for cameras and technology of the future? Well, everything else is becoming more and more automated, so I wouldn't be surprised if we start getting tracking devices in footballs, then the cameras that can track them and maintain an actual image of the football throughout the play, which is what we didn't have any immaculate reception.

You can't see the ball on the ground or slightly off. So one of the things that comes about when people actually look at these plays is the fact that the instant replay, whether it existed then or not, which it didn't, but even if it did, it solved nothing. And it would have solved nothing because the people who look at it on one side, who are on one side, they think one thing. The people who are on another side, they think another thing if you're a Steelers fan it's the immaculate reception

if you're a Raiders fan it's a rip off it's the immaculate deception yes and this is the whole aspect of you speak to one fan

you speak to players on one team you get one answer and one answer only touchdown why are we even arguing you go to the other side same thing completely think but this has some science involved in it and that's why answer and one answer only touchdown why are we even arguing you go to the other side same

completely thing but this has some science involved in it and that's why we have none other than dr neil degrasse tyson himself hey and he's going to talk about the science of confirmation bias because normally we have neil talking about astrophysics but uh in my travels with neil what i have uh found out about him is he knows everything yes so no i'm just everything he he hates when i say that hey but you know what neil you know in the last segment we heard you just to be clear yeah just because someone knows more than you doesn't mean they know everything in my book it does you know so in the last segment we uh we heard you talking to uh quarterback ryan Ryan Fitzpatrick. And you asked him, you know, you said we were polling quarterbacks about the Immaculate Reception.

And then you said it's funny that you just basically account this up to luck. You have no problem doing that. And he was like, I wish I could have had that kind of luck. So two things. One, I want to talk to you as a scientist. Do you believe in luck as a scientist? Is there such a thing as luck? I'm a fan of the adage, luck comes to the well prepared. So the people who are luckiest are the ones who not only see an opportunity, but exploit it and use it to their advantage, which then to others who did not see the opportunity, it comes across as something called luck.

So another reason why we even think luck exists as a thing is there is no hardly any training in probability and statistics in our K through 12 educational system. training in probability and statistics in our K through 12 educational system. And so we are woefully unprepared to understand statistics of things. Not only that, to understand things like the chances of winning a lottery ticket, the chances of, and what's curious is the lottery in most states feeds the educational system. Which if you took advantage of the educational system, you would never play the lottery. Well, exactly. So it's in the lottery's best interest to make sure that they don't teach probability and statistics. Otherwise, no one would be playing the lottery.

So, no, I'm not convinced that there's such a thing as luck there's just the random statistics that we interpret it as some kind of directed um reality can you neil design a play using a certain element of probabilities thinking yeah this is how we do it in this particular part of the game which is desperation time. Yeah. So baseball does that all the time. That's why they'll swap out a batter for one who can bunt a little better. They'll swap out a runner who can bunt better on that pitcher. So the difference is baseball has all this dead time between plays to discuss the statistics of these things. In football, you don't quite get the full discussion time available to you. But you can, in principle,

run something purely statistically based on the history of outcomes given a situation. It's well known, for example, that teams should go for if you haven't already covered this, they should go for a first down on third down more often than they do. Right. Because some of those times they will make first down and some of those they'll score the touchdown. But there are, there are definite times you're saying that the statistic, the statistical outcome favors going for third down, I mean, going for third down i mean going for fourth down and whatever but the coach will not do it right because it depends on the coach's

awareness and sensitivity to the role of statistics in their lives and in their decision making and somebody now if you went everything by statistics then i guess you don't need a coach so the coach might tell you you don't need a coach. So the coach might tell you, I don't want to speak for them, but I bet they'll say, no, this is my life experience I'm invoking here. Well, that life experience is informed by some statistical history of outcomes given a situation. We get it. If they get it wrong, then we all become Monday morning quarterbacks. We're now Tuesday morning quarterbacks, if they get it right,

then everyone praises their insight and their ingenuity. And again, this is where people will interpret luck as skill, when in fact, it would have really just been luck. Gotcha. So we get to the philosophical question. Statistics of the situation, working out the full statistical distributions of outcomes. All right. So if we get to the philosophical point where is the game better for the human error or do we take human error out and just stick a computer on the sideline and just punch in an algorithm and off we go? I got to say, of course, baseball has passed that.

And I kind of miss the coach kicking dirt on the shoes of the umpire. You know, just all in the face like this. We've seen these. A little bit of me misses that. I don't know why. It's kind of perverse actually because you want the truth to manifest and ideally that way. But I don't know. For me, sport is human and decision making is human and why why do you you know uh if everything were just the judgment of a referee um excuse me if there were no judgments of

referees everything was camera determined like i said you wouldn't need the referee yeah and it's funny but even some human element i I got one. Here you go. Every fifth play is the opposite of what the referee calls. How about that? You just throw in. You're messing with things now. Now you are playing with science. The random, you see the Ram,

the random bizarro call, random bizarro call. All right. So now let me ask you this. Let's talk about this for a second neil and uh this is one of the main reasons we wanted to have you is because when you look at this play which is probably the most iconic play in football history ever yeah okay uh everybody knows it and i think it's because it is still to this day the most controversial football play, despite the fact that it's been books written.

There's been countless interviews done. There's been analysis conducted ad infinitum. But what happens is, irrespective of whatever the data may say, the people on one side who actually think that this was a good play they come out seeing the video seeing all the explanations and they say it's a good play the people on the other side who say that the oakland raiders were ripped off and that this should have never happened they come out saying it should have never happened they're all looking at the exact same thing. And this is what I wanted to get to you about. What is that? And do we see that one in science? And, you know, where else do we see that? So, yeah, so this is, as you had hinted earlier, it's a form of confirmation bias, which is a very human thing. There are things we want to be true. And we will create a bubble around ourselves,

receiving information that supports what we want to be true. And that bubble is kind of is bulletproof against any piece of data, any thought, any commentary that might undermine your belief that it's true. And so it's so you have a filtering mechanism for information. And in many cases, it's highly subliminal. You think you're making rational decisions, but in fact, you're not. And so what you would need in the case of the immaculate reception is you invite in a space alien who doesn't really care, doesn't even understand anything, to say, what does this look like to you? Boy, that was an awesome catch.

Then we're pretty good on that. If the alien says, wait a minute, that ball touched the ground, it shouldn't have. So what you want is an unbiased observer. And a space alien would be an extreme limiting case of that. But an unbiased observer will have less will be less susceptible to confirmation bias and in science of course we we we know all about well that's confirmation bias is one of many many biases there's a whole google page a wiki page very nicely, talking about all the cognitive biases that we are victims of

as humans. In science, we have slightly more awareness of that possibility within us, but there's still the risk that our scientific results can have the bias of what we want. And so that's why a scientific result is not true until there's verification from competing factions. And I put out a result, and the press runs to it. Oh, new understanding of the universe. No, that is an understanding of the universe waiting for confirmation. And once someone else does it who has no risk of the same kind of bias I might put in, someone who's a competing researcher, all manner of people, someone from another country with a different voltage out of the wall that powers the

apparatus, if we all start getting the same result, then we know I was onto something and I was not subject to bias. But if people start getting different results from me, then people start looking to me and say, are you biased? Was there a blunder? And that's a demerit in my scientific standing. So we don't want to ever be victims of our own bias. We want to be the most critical viewers of our own work so that no one else puts it in our face. Gotcha. Very, very cool. Very cool. So now, speaking of confirmation bias, I'm sure you've seen the immaculate reception. Could you once and for all settle this subject

for us? So here's my reply. By the way, in the Pittsburgh airport, there's a mannequin of Franco Harris. Yes. Yep. Grabbing the ball right just before it's touching the ground. Right. And like there is like there in the airport. And so, so it's, it's not only a, it was not only a football play, it is now legend and elevated to the level of shrines. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what that was. shrines. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That's what that was. So I think it's one of these plays where if it was not legit, it's so much more amazing and fun if it were. So let's just keep it that way. Gotcha. Gotcha.

You should run for office. Okay. Hey, Neil, thanks so much for joining us and lending your voice to this very important 44-year-old controversy. Man, it's been that long because I remember it. I think it's been that long.

I think it's been that long. Thank you as always. Alright, guys. We'll catch you on another time. Alright, buddy. Look forward to it. Thanks a lot. Confirmation from the voice, the designated voice of the universe. Yes. It's in.

We are going to take another break. So question time. John Fuqua, the intended receiver for Terry Bradshaw's pass, has a middle name. What is his middle name? Right. Have a think about that. The next question. The chief official on the day, the number one referee.

What was his name? Yeah, right. Little brain teaser for you. We will have the answers when we come back. Get thinking. See you shortly. Welcome back.

I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Knives. And this is Playing With Science. Yes, it is. And we've been talking about The Immaculate Reception, the most famous play in NFL history. Certainly is. And it has already caused a number of debates,

some of which have not been settled, some of which have. Right, two questions before the break. Here are your answers. I asked you the nickname of John Fuqua from the Steelers. Frenchie. Frenchie.

Always known as Frenchie. And the chief official, the senior man, the head honcho, the big cheese, whichever you want to call him, Fred Swearingen was the man

on the other end of the phone to NFL supervisor Art McNally. What a perfect name for a referee. I swear that was a call. I swear. Swearingen. You're always going to find the humor. I'm going. I can't help it. Of course. Why should you? Right. Now let's turn towards and we are nearly 50 years on from the Immaculate Reception, the legacy of this play. Yeah. I said in the introduction, it was the turning point for the Steelers and their franchise in the 70s.

Absolutely. It turned the Raiders fans, the club, into Raiders versus not just the NFL, but the world. Absolutely. And that battle is still raging right now, but it's given us so many other legacies and thoughts with the change of the rules, instant replays, and all sorts of other things, as well as debates.

Absolutely. I mean, I think one of the enduring legacies is just the fact that it's still such an iconic play, which, I don't know, Jim, maybe you, from a writer's standpoint, I kind of feel like the name itself had a big part in us remembering this play. I mean, not too many plays get a name. Like I remember what was the San Francisco Super Bowl where Montana, they called it the

catch. Right. Never caught on. The catch never caught on, you know? And you had the one with the Giants over the Patriots where Tyreek caught it on his head. On his head. Which is ridiculous. Right.

And no one's ever even named that. They never even named it. Like Helmet Catch or you know what I mean? 42 I think. Catch 42. What a lousy name. No wonder nobody is like, you know. Also, too, there was some controversy surrounding that catch, too,

whether or not he asked whether or not the ball hit the ground. It was all about did it touch the ground. You asked about the phrase. Here we go. The phrase was first used on air by Myron Cope. Myron Cope. Yes, a Pittsburgh sportscaster who was reporting on the Steelers' victory. And a Pittsburgh woman, Sharon Lovosky, called Cope the night of the game

and suggested the name that was coined by her friend Michael Ord. So Cope says it, Ord comes up with it, and the rest you know is. It's history. Yeah. And it makes sense, you know. So, you know, here's the thing about this that I find fascinating. Here we are all these years later. We put out on Twitter and Facebook, you know, just kind of an alert.

Like, hey, guys, if you're a fan of the Immaculate Reception, give us your thoughts. Join in. That's all we said. Give us your. I have five pages, five pages of quotes and thoughts from people online. Here's Warren Bush from Facebook says, It was terribly exciting, the play leading up to the catch. It was an amazing day to watch this happen,

to tell whether or not the ball touched the ground during the catch or not. Today, we have so many camera angles with so much detail. They can analyze whether a catch was complete or incomplete with incredible precision. There is simply no way to tell if this catch was complete or incomplete by the video that's on hand. However, if you check out the statue in the Pittsburgh airport, I think it puts all doubts to rest. Okay, so clearly he's a...

Does he mean the one of George Washington? Or is it the one of Franco Harris? Yeah. So here's another guy. Chris Larson from Facebook says this. It's Schrodinger's ball. Oh. Look at this guy getting a little fit.

You like that one, Eric? Schrodinger's ball. That's what he says. Cuter than Schrodinger's cat, I guess. He says. He says. Go on, explain. So, Eric, please, before you go on, explain that whole. Schrodinger's cat, I guess. He says – Go on, explain. So, Eric, please, before you go on, explain that whole phraseology.

Schrodinger. Give us the Schrodinger analogy. Well, the Schrodinger's cat idea was that you could have a cat simultaneously be in an alive and dead state. This was something that was kicked around during the early days of quantum mechanics, not knowing something and having only probabilistic interpretations. So I think the football is the same idea. You know, was it above the ground or was it touching the ground? Right. The idea. Right. Was it touched? Was it not touched by the offensive player? So that's the Schrodinger's ball. So we like that to the list of conspiracy theories. Yes, exactly.

And he says, it was both a catch and not a catch at the same time. Get over it. Schrodinger's ball. Chris Larson said that. Here's a really cool, I got to give you guys the coolest, we got a little Twitter response, and I think it's the coolest Twitter response

that we got on the whole thing. This is from Mark Cuban. And, yes, that Mark Cuban, billionaire NBA franchise owner, Mark Cuban, actually said this. I remember that moment. I was upset, thinking we would lose. Went out to shoot some baskets, of course. And then came screaming into the room once I found out that they had won. So how cool is that?

But see, that's it. A fan is born. The players will be upset or exhilarated, euphoric. But the ripple effect of this 26 seconds has been amazing and it's still finding its way out into the universe so so the thing is jim there was a guy who has the ball from the immaculate reception and he dives into a ruck of people after the point after, grabs it, and he's still got it,

and it's locked in a safety vault, and he lives in Pittsburgh, and it goes to the Hall of Fame every now and again. And it's that sort of stuff that you just, is bonkers, but it touches people on such a level.

Why do we follow sports? It's just, it's the hair standing up on the back of your neck, and artifacts you know baseballs certain things

you know we keep for keepsakes but it's because we remember the moment it's not the it's not the ball

did we see this franchise coming the Steelers franchise before this particular game they were awful that good in in I think it was 69 uh Bradshaw was benched wow um and he was almost cut I believe maybe that's

too strong but they were just horrendous and um this changed their fortune the Raiders were like the uh you know they were like uh not America's. They were like the anti-America's team. I think they still are. It's a watershed moment for the Steelers. Twist of the fates of both teams. Amazing because the prize of beating the Raiders on the day is a game against the Miami Dolphins. Now, Eric, you have a little bit of trivia that's attached to this particular day in Pittsburgh history. So the game against Miami was played in Three

Rivers Stadium, which was odd because Miami was undefeated at the time. And the Pittsburgh Steelers lost 21 to 17. But that same day, Pittsburgh and everyone else in the sports world and the world in general lost Roberto Clemente to a plane crash. He was on his way to Nicaragua to help victims of an earthquake. And it was just a sad day. Sad day. Sad day. Just 38 years old. And his last hit in Major league baseball was his 3000th hit

wow so he finished with 3000 on the nose and uh the 31st of december in 72 is it just an awful day in pittsburgh history wow the magic of the numbers he because i'm sure his own personal targets would have included 3000 yeah and there he achieves it thinking what else can i achieve and then it's dramatically taken away what a sad day yeah you know and it's funny because uh when you talk about sad days and you were talking about legacies i i actually transcribed i sat and i listened to some of these uh comments that these players made after this game. And it's fascinating the kind of, I don't want to call it sour grapes. But it's sour grapes. But these guys, I mean, this really had an effect on them.

So listen to Phil Villapiano, who was the linebacker for the Oakland Raiders. These are his exact words. I'm not making any of this up, and I did not embellish at all. who was the linebacker for the Oakland Raiders during that. These are his exact words, okay? I'm not making any of this up, and I did not embellish at all. I'm not paraphrasing. All right, here it goes. Terry Bradshaw took the snap. I looked at him.

I looked at Franco. I looked back at him again. Franco's doing nothing. He missed his block. Bradshaw scrambles out of the way. Franco comes jogging down the field. Half speed. He's my man, so I'm jogging half speed with him. I saw Bradshaw throw the ball. I shot over to help make the tackle. Meanwhile, Franco had just drifted over there somewhere, and it goes right to him. Had I been as lazy as Franco, that ball would have come to me waist high.

Now I spin around. I can still make the play. Nick Macon. No one would ever remember this guy. They're tight end. Smart player. Dives in the back of my legs. What's he got to lose?

They're going to lose the game anyway. The biggest clip ever. No clip call. I remember laying on the ground watching Franco turn down the sideline, just not believing, just can't believe what happened. That's an angry dude. Yeah. And you don't need a linebacker that's angry. It's so funny, like so many fates. See, that would have been in the locker room just after. And the adrenaline and the anger will just be festering.

Terrible. Saying if I was as lazy as he had been, I would have caught that. Oh, no, you don't hold back. At that moment, you don't care at all as an athlete that's just lost a game like this. So you just let it all out, baby. It's funny. Jack Tatum, who, you know, of course, he's at the center of the controversy. Here's a guy, whether did you touch the ball, did you not? Now, originally

Tatum, immediately after, he said hey, I didn't touch the ball. But then there's other interviews where you hear him say I really couldn't tell you if I hit the ball or not. So, you know, it's here's a guy who, you know, once again, you know, so many fates turned on this game that I think the one that really the quote that got me the most was Frenchie Fuqua, who was the guy who Franco Harris kind of supplanted as the savior of Pittsburgh. Because, you know, Frenchie was the guy that everybody was looking to to be the big hero. This is what he actually said years after this game. Years and years after this game, he says,

it was my opportunity to be a hero, to be lifted up on everybody's shoulders. I'm looking into Bradshaw's blue eyes the whole time. I know he's going to throw it to me. He ducks. He comes up. He throws the ball. Well, I look to the sideline and he runs down the sideline with my hundreds of thousands of dollars that I would have made if I would have caught that ball and scored.

I'm saying to myself, God, I blew it. How messed up is that, man? How do you spell team again? Is it the one with the I in it? Yeah, team is the one with the I in it. And the hundreds of thousands of dollars lost. But then again, just afterwards, he said that he'd spoken to one person and one person

only, Frenchie. And that was the old owner, Art Rooney. And he said, I told him what happened. And Rooney one person only, Frenchie. And that was the old owner, Art Rooney. And he said, I told him what happened. And Rooney's reply was, Frenchie, just keep it immaculate. So he's never spoken about that again in terms of what actually happened. Wow. Yeah, well, it doesn't seem like it's a happy memory for him anyway. He's monetized that whole event, hasn't he?

Oh, without a doubt yeah for sure oh man well this has been fun yeah absolutely I've really enjoyed this

I mean little walk down memory lane not that I was there okay let's do just a straw poll your opinion was it or not

I think Tatum it went off his shoulder pads I don't think Fuqua touched it I think it went off of Tatum and the play

is what it is. Immaculate. Immaculate. Eric. As a scientist, I don't have enough data to make a perfect assessment, so I'm going to say I just don't have a gut feeling on it. Alright, that was very scientific of you, Eric.

I cannot deny the man his principles and he stuck with it. I think it's a touchdown. I cannot rule on Franco Harris because I don't think anyone can, apart from the man his principles and he's stuck with it. I think it's a touchdown. I cannot rule on Franco Harris because I don't think anyone can apart from the man himself. Yeah, there you have it. And what we do say is all respect to the officials because they call it basically there and then in real time. Yeah, it's a tough job. Tough job. I'll never forget in high school we used to do a thing where a ref would make a bad call and everybody would chant,

the ref beats his wife, the ref beats his wife. Now, that means nothing here. I just thought I'd share that. Thank you for sharing. Professor Eric Goff, thank you so much for your insight into the physics of the Immaculate Reception. Jim Brennan, thank you for being in the studio. It's been an absolute pleasure for the memories and thoughts. I'm Gary O'Reilly. I'm Chuck Nice. And this has been Playing With Science. If you have a thought on the Immaculate Reception, don't keep it to yourself. Share it

with us. If it's an immaculate deception, then there's nothing going to change your mind. We look forward to your company soon. Bye for now. Welcome back and thanks for sticking with us. This, of course, is our extended version of the Immaculate Reception. Right, let's get to it, Chuck, with the good Professor Eric Goff. Hey, Professor, how are you? Hi. I'm doing great.

How are you, Chuck and Gary? We are good to have you. Right. And once again, of course, the author of Gold Medal Physics, as Gary said, the stocking stuffer of all time. Yes. So go get your stocking stuffed. I'll get better than that. I just love saying that. I don't know why.

But anyway, you know, so this is still, and I don't know if you can speak to this or not, Professor, but whether it's sports or politics or anything, it seems as though confirmation bias, you can't get away from it. The great thing about this play is, we're coming up on the anniversary. And people who watch this, it's been analyzed every single kind of way possible. And the people who are Pittsburgh fans are saying it's the greatest play of all time. And a lot of other people are saying it's the greatest play of all time and a lot of other people are saying silver and black yeah they're just raider nation is it's just playing to their mantra they're saying this is everybody hates us we were ripped off and this is why you know they didn't want us to have

it and you know the conspiracy so can i don't know if you could speak to that uh in terms of from a scientific standpoint or just from a sports standpoint? Well, I think confirmation bias kind of hits all of us from time to time. I mean, first of all, we don't want to be seen as wrong. We don't like to admit we're wrong. And sometimes even with data staring us in the face that says we're wrong, we like to spin it in a direction that maybe makes it look like either there's something wrong with the data or the video's a little off or there's some conspiracy that somebody's trying to suppress something. So we tend to hold on to those visceral beliefs that we have. And sometimes even science

has trouble prying you out of your beliefs and giving you something a little more realistic. That was my next question. How do you avoid that in science? You're doing research, okay? You want your research to work. How do you, as a scientist, avoid confirmation bias and avoid the temptation to spin something so that, hey, so that all my work isn't in vain? Well, good ethical science is done with the idea of just learning how the universe works. And one of the greatest things that can happen is sometimes we learn we're wrong about something. And that's how we learn something. If we have a preconceived notion for how something works and we find out that that's not how it works, that's really exciting because that means we've learned something.

If we never change our current beliefs or never change our current understanding of the universe, we're going to spend the rest of our lives not learning anything. So that's kind of boring. So are you saying that as a scientist, it's actually a good thing to be wrong, that you celebrate being wrong? Because I'm going to tell you what most people think about being wrong. I'm the scientist. I get my findings.

I'm going to back up off the mic so that this is what you hear in the laboratory. God damn it. I can't go wasting my whole life. I just get cut down. You know, you know, I'm just saying. You need a nap. You saying. You need a gnat. You do. You need a gnat. I mean, you know. What was it?

Edison, I think, is the one that said he found 2,000 ways not to build a light bulb. I mean, he failed and failed and failed and then finally figured it out how to do it. And now nobody else takes 2,000 failures to do it. So, you know, there's value in finding how to do something wrong. You know, you stumble and you try to learn something and maybe you don't learn it very well and you're mistaken in your experiments or whatever, but you start learning how to do things better and improving your technique in the future. And then you finally learn something and it's really cool. By the way, I don't know how you knew this, but I was doing an impression of Edison.

By the way, I don't know how you knew this, but I was doing an impression of Edison. Oh, yeah. I could tell. Good old Thomas Edison. Not a professor for nothing. He knows this stuff. He just knows this stuff. It was the accent that did it.

Always that. All right. First question. Our good friend and obvious avid listener, of which we thank him, James Thompson, comes up with on Twitter, Can science develop an airless football conforming to all official specifications, thus ending future deflate gate worries? Wow. So, Professor, is it possible? Do we have the science, the technology, the wherewithal to create such a ball? An airless football.

Well, I'm not sure we'd want to create an airless football. I mean, when you go to kick off a ball or you're going to punt it, the main idea is that the foot goes into the ball a good chunk and you compress the air inside of that ball. ball a good chunk and you compress the air inside of that ball and then you get this springy effect where the air releases and the ball comes off of your foot and that force of interaction between the foot and the ball might average four or five hundred pounds but it could get close to a ton on a very very short time scale and that comes about through that compressed air so you know trying to figure out how you would design a ball where you could get that same kind of springy effect without air is going to be challenging so it's better for the imperfections in the sense yeah isn't that one of it's one of those wonderful

things that it's all better because there are imperfections like the laces outside make their talk and all the rest of it so also if you once it hits the ground it may not bounce and it bounces weird anyway because of its shape but it won't bounce in the same way it will have a lower bounce and obviously force is involved in that that's right you have this delicious prolate ellipsoid that the football is shaped in and then you get this nice bounce off of the nose or the side and you get these strange bounces but the bounces come about through compressions of the ball in which case the air gets compressed and then springs back out i mean just try to imagine playing soccer gary where you've got a ball that doesn't have air in it i mean it's kind of a solid i don't think you'd

want to do that that's called my childhood what are you guys talking about you're not able to kick it you won't be able to do all the things that you're supposed to and can do with it. Basically, you would destroy the game. How about this? A revolutionary, not yet existing, foam that has the same weight as air, but yet has the spring and memory of the ball itself. Flubber. Flubber. Flubber.

Flubber. Flubber. Same density as air, but okay, yes. I mean, you could try that. I mean, the trick is going to be getting that springiness in the material to give you the kind of large forces you need over just a small amount of the ball, because right now you take advantage of the entire ball with the air contained within it. So basically air is the best thing, you know. It's cheap. It's cheap. We prefer inexpensive, Professor, to cheap. So, I mean, the fact that you can deform or be it for fractions of a second, as the professor was explaining when you're punting,

that just adds to the magic of everything that goes on within the physics. I mean, what is the ideal pressure? Can we over-inflate a football, would you say? Sure. Well, if your Tom Brady regulation is over-inflated, we're under-inflated, right? Well,'m saying if, yeah, go ahead. Sorry. The, I mean, I think the, the rules in the NFL state 12 and a half to 13 and a half PSI. Now keep in mind, that's the gauge pressure. So we all experience something like 14.7 PSI of atmospheric pressure. So you got about, you know, on the square inch of your skin, you have the weight of a bowling ball from the air acting. And luckily we've evolved in this atmosphere. So we've got about that much pressure from our cells on the inside that balance it. But the thing with the

ball, it's like a tire. You have this rigidity in the material that allows you to keep a pressure 12 and a half to 13 and a half PSI above above the atmospheric pressure so the ball feels nice and tight the material around it's nice and rigid one lesser tom brady in which case you like your ball soft so still riding the brady mobile aren't you you are driving it into the ground i am through the ground i'll come out in china if i have to. Okay. Hey, why don't we go to another question before I get myself in trouble. This is Ghosty, and Ghosty comes to us from Twitter, at Ghost250UK, or 2501UK. I wonder if he's actually from the UK, Gary.

Of course. Okay. So it says, if a top NFL player can throw a ball 100 yards on Earth, how far could he throw on the moon? And he puts in parentheses wearing a spacesuit. I'm not sure. I guess that would limit mobility. But I'm going to lose that part. No, no, put him in a spacesuit.

But don't forget, with the gravitational difference. I know, but that's a lot to figure out. You don't need the movement, will you? You're a physicist. Come on, let's have the good guy deal with but that's a lot to figure out. You don't have to need the movement. You're a physicist. Come on, let's have the good guy deal with it. In the spacesuit. Yeah. So the moon's gravitational tug is about one-sixth of what it is on the Earth.

So if you could get the moon suit to have you a gloved hand so that you could actually throw it with the same technique that you throw it on the earth, which would be challenging. You're talking about six times farther. You also don't have an atmosphere, so you reduce the drag. And when you first throw the ball, you get about a third the weight of the ball in the air drag. So you're going to get about six times farther, so you're talking about 600 yards, and then maybe you get another 10% or 20% distance in that with the lack of atmosphere. So, you know, maybe you get something close to 700 yards of the throw. It's going to have to be 1,000 yards long. Yeah, that's pretty cool, man. So now let me ask you this.

What would it take for you to throw the ball so that it would orbit the moon? Or is that too much to figure out right now? Well, you're going to need the escape velocity of the moon. So you're going to need from the Earth, it's about 11 kilometers per second. And you're going to have a, what is there, a square root of g in there. So you're going to have to take that down to a sixth. And so you're going to have to do about a third or something of the the launch speed to get this thing into orbit but i don't think we're going to get people throwing kilometer per second footballs up on the moon yeah i'm with you on

that it's a serious arm yeah maybe get aaron rogers up there well you know i don't know carson wentz might be able to do it i'm just oh it's all about the eagles isn't it it's all about the eagles listen you know the eagles can't fly on the moon because there's no air, right? Ta-da! Yeah. Grounded. They can't fly on the moon, but they can still beat Dallas and the New York Giants. Ooh, I don't care where they play them.

It's okay, Professor. He hasn't been able to sing that song for some time. So, just going to let him have that. I never gloat. Okay, we're having a great season. I never gloat. Okay, I'm going to leave it at that. I never gloat. Okay, we're having a great season. I never gloat. Okay, I'm going to leave it at that. All right?

Okay. Yeah, right. Everybody thinks Eagles fans are the worst, you know, but I'm just saying, you know, it feels good to win, and we don't know what to do with that. All right? Seriously. It's like the prettiest girl in school just said hello to me. What am I going to do? All right?

Am I going to pull a Louis C.K.? I don't think so. I don't know what I'm going to do. All right. I just keep talking now because I'm nervous. Moving on. There you go. Professor, I think someone feels better now.

Hey, you know what? We're out of time. Someone feels better now. What do you know? We're out of time. What if the producer had that happen? Professor, thank you so much. for your patience with with our eagles yeah uh right it's been fabulous to have professor eric goff uh answer your questions

uh the pleasure was ours as always and thank you to our listeners for your questions uh that's been playing with science and an extended and revisited version of our Immaculate Reception. So I hope you've enjoyed that. Until next time, from Gary O'Reilly and... I'm Chuck Nice. We'll see you all soon. Bye-bye.