Thank goodness for Bill Nye the Science Guy, and that's all I have to say. At a time when everyone from athletes to comedians to politicians has had something to say on this topic, we can always count on Nye to tell us what's really going on here.
Nye's involvement in #DeflateGate first grabbed headlines when he appeared on Good Morning America on Sunday. Because of New England Patriots' Head Coach Bill Belichick's pseudoscientific explanation for why the team's footballs didn't meet NFL regulations during the playoff game against the Indianapolis Colts on Jan. 18, some media outlets began calling him "Bill Belichick the Science Guy."
Nye, the real "Science Guy," said Belichick's explanation that the climate and the way the footballs were rubbed down before the game caused them to deflate "didn't make any sense." He said the only way to change the pressure in a football is with an inflation needle. Ooh, burn.
To make things a little clearer for us, Nye did what a "Science Guy" does best: an experiment. In a new video for Funny or Die, Nye places a bunch of footballs in a refrigerator set to 51 degrees Fahrenheit. He takes a bit of time to talk to us about a much more pressing issue than #DeflateGate, climate change, breaking it down for us in a way that we can all understand. "Yes, like Tom Brady, the world's getting hotter and hotter," Nye says in the video. Indeed he, er, it is.
After enough time has passed, Nye takes the footballs out of the fridge. Surprise, surprise. The ball hasn't changed. Nye says he thinks the Patriots bent the rules a bit and even gets in a cheer for the Seattle Seahawks to win the Super Bowl. It's a win-win for Nye, too.
Nye isn't the only "Science Guy" sharing his thoughts on #DeflateGate. Our other resident expert on life, Neil Degrasse Tyson, recently had this to say on Twitter:
For the Patriots to blame a change in temperature for 15% lower-pressures, requires balls to be inflated with 125-degree air.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) January 26, 2015
Though the Patriots maintain that there was no wrongdoing on the team's part in regard to the underinflated footballs used during the game, science seems to suggest otherwise. At least these explanations from our favorite scientists do.
Check out the full video below, and decide for yourself whether Nye's experiment holds up or if he's just full of hot air.
