Saturday afternoon at the dawn of the second quarter. When the second timeout is upon Scott Field, look to the South end zone, for today’s physics lesson will be widely displayed on State’s mega-screen.
That’s right, starting Saturday during the season-opener against Jackson State, the Mississippi State athletic department will be airing a new video segment called “Physics and Football.”
Josh Winter, the physics instructor who will conduct all seven home game segments, said the motivation behind the short-science lessons is to bring a new flavor to MSU’s game-day atmosphere.
“I’m excited for the opportunity to get a message about physics out there in a situation where people aren’t necessarily thinking about science,” he said.
Chad Thomas, coordinator of athletic marketing, said the videos, which will be aired on the new video screen during time outs, are meant to “bridge the gap between athletics and academics.”
However, to be clear, Winter said rowdy students need not worry about getting lulled to sleep.
“We are going for funny,” he said. “We don’t want it to be a downer.”
For the series’ debut, the topic will be inertia. A basic law of physics, inertia deals with an object’s tendency, depending on its overall mass, to remain in a current state of motion.
“The bigger the object, the more difficult it is to make it start moving,” Winter said. “That’s the advantage of having a bigger guy playing; it’s easier for a larger person to hold their ground against an outside force.”
The larger person, listed at 6’1″, 240 pounds, starring in this demonstration is senior linebacker Jamar Chaney. To demonstrate the effects of inertia in the video, Winter lies belly-up on MSU’s football practice field with a small, slender cinder block positioned on his stomach, while a standard cinder block is placed vertically on top of the smaller, flatter piece. After the set-up is complete, Chaney proceeds to swing a sledge hammer, crushing the vertical cinder block while leaving Winter completely unharmed.
“You may have seen the demonstration on TV,” Winter said. “People try to make it look dramatic, like they are tougher than they really are. But it’s simply not that dangerous.”
Winter said Chaney struck him as a capable, sure-handed young man. Chaney was not as convinced.
“I was kind of scared,” Chaney said. “I have chopped wood before; I didn’t want to miss and hit him in the face with a sledge hammer.”
Winter said athletic directortor Greg Byrne had been knocking the idea around for a while, although MSU’s version of “Physics and Football” is not a novel idea.
Similar segments have been shown at schools such as Nebraska and Texas A&M, albeit over a decade ago.