Explaining the Arrow of Football

Not sure which blogs the editors of the Onion have been reading, but I have to approve of their proposed model for explaining the low entropy at the beginning of a football game by recourse to an infinite series of downs before “first down.”

NEW YORK — Citing the extremely low level of entropy present before a normal set of football downs, scientists from the NFL’s quantum mechanics and cosmology laboratories spoke Monday of a theoretical proto-down before the first. “Ultimately, we believe there are an infinite number of proto-downs played before the first visible snap,” lead NFL scientist Dr. Oliver Claussen said during a press conference, adding that the very last yocto-down is a by-product of leftover fourth downs from this universe, as well as those from a theoretical universe running along an arrow of time concurrent to our own.

Probably some enthusiastic football coach is going to try to cash in by writing a book about the idea, while others fulminate on the sidelines about how such irresponsible speculation is destroying the game. (Thanks to Ahmet Toker and Tom Fishman.)

14 Comments

14 thoughts on “Explaining the Arrow of Football”

  1. The picture of the biologists/chemists attached to the article is somewhat distracting, though I suppose they are more recognizable as scientists at work than theoretical physicists.

  2. “while others fulminate on the sidelines about how such irresponsible speculation is destroying the game.”

    Yeah, I bet Popper played a mean game of football. And Einstein would be horrified to see how the game is played these days.

  3. Pingback: Paramnet Football : 2009-09-29

  4. Interestingly, there are parts of the multiverse in which football really is a game played with the feet, but I don’t think these are observable from the United States (at least not without cable).

  5. Reginald Selkirk

    More from Fr. Spitzer: “this theory has become so scientifically solid, that 50% of astrophysicists are “coming out of the closet” an accepting a metaphysical conclusion: the need of a Creator.”

  6. Clearly that must be a hoax, as we are reliably and insistently told that science and religion are completely non-overlapping magisteria.

Comments are closed.

Scroll to Top