#ICYMI - 2018 Soccer Tech: Beyond Sports & Telstar 18

In case you missed this episode on the Playing with Science channel…We look to the future of soccer and prepare for the 2018 FIFA World Cup as we investigate Beyond Sports VR technology and the new Adidas Telstar 18 with hosts Gary O’Reilly, Chuck Nice and Beyond Sports CEO Jeffrey Saunders and physicist John Eric Goff. Photo Credit: © 2018 BEYOND SPORTS BV.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:09Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm Gary O'Reilly

• 0:10Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice

• 0:11Gary O'Reilly?

  And this is Playing with Science Football or Soccer, whichever you prefer, has not been shy in embracing technology. Goal line tech and GPS tracking have been staples of the modern game for years. But what is on the cutting edge? What are we going to see in the 2018 World Cup in Russia and beyond?

• 0:32Chuck Nice?

  Yes, and beyond is exactly where we'll go for our answers as we talk to Jeff Saunders, CEO of Beyond Sports, a sports tech company that works with current world champions Germany and English Premier League giants Arsenal. I think you know those guys.

• 0:47Gary O'Reilly?

  I do. I'm not an Arsenal fan, but we respect the club most definitely. Right, and giving us a totally unique, well, that was my bias anyway, giving us a totally unique and detailed insight into the official World Cup ball after having put it through its paces is our very good friend Professor Eric Goff, who has just published a paper on exactly this subject.

• 1:08Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, and it's a long one.

• 1:10Gary O'Reilly?

  It is.

• 1:10Chuck Nice?

  And very detailed.

• 1:11Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, lots of equations.

• 1:13Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 1:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Which he will explain, not me. There we are. Right. Joining us by video call is Beyond Sports CEO Jeff Saunders. Jeff, welcome to the show.

• 1:23Speaker 02

  Thank you, guys. It's great to be here.

• 1:26Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 1:26Gary O'Reilly?

  Always great to have the tech side of sport with us. So what is Beyond Sports Tech? What sets your tech apart from tech being used by other teams, other sports?

• 1:38Speaker 02

  I think first and foremost, we're the only company that's doing exactly, you know, what we are doing in the sports space. What we do is we take tracking data and we turn that into virtual reality worlds where teams, coaches can train, can analyse all parts of their game. Broadcasters can bring immersive experiences to broadcast audiences and fans, of course, can experience the game like never before from any perspective on the field.

• 2:15Chuck Nice?

  Wow, so you really have created a virtual world for sports. I mean, this is almost every perspective being represented in the game. Now, are you primarily soccer? Is that, or are you doing every sport?

• 2:30Speaker 02

  I think, yeah, we started in soccer or football, Gary, just so you don't, you know,

• 2:34Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 2:35Speaker 02

  get lost in the conversation. We started in soccer and about three, three and a half years ago, made a lot of great inroads in Europe with national teams, with leagues, with clubs. And now we're pivoting into other sports. We work in cycling currently as well as soccer and soon to be in basketball and American football.

• 3:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, so not only is the experience holistic experience, you're now branching out horizontally and vertically within the sporting world. So how are teams, how are coaches, how are athletes, I'll call them athletes because we've gone into more than one, one area here, are they benefiting, are they engaging with your technology? Because there must be a specific reason or several as to why they're hooked into your, what are your company's tech?

• 3:33Speaker 02

  I think from, you know, from a performance standpoint, we like to, to speak about what we do as the, as cognitive training. So if you can quantify cognitive acuity, cognitive function, then you can train it. And so we've been able to utilize, again, the, the tracking data that is now pretty ubiquitous across the sporting scene and professional leagues. We've used that to create these environments where now we can tap into and then train cognition in professional athletes. And I think that's really the important, you know, point of what we do is, you know, we're moving from what has been up to this standpoint, a lot of data

• 4:18Speaker 02

  that has come out and utilized in. In the sports realm, um, but it's mostly on the physical parameters of performance. And now we wanna move into trying um to understand more about the uh cognition parameters um.

• 4:33Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 4:33Speaker 02

  With the sports and athletes.

• 4:35Chuck Nice?

  I saw a video um on your site about a young player. He was look look to be uh, he might have been a middle schooler. I don't even think this kid was in high school and uh using the tech to make to help with decision making. So kind of what you're talking about right there from a cognitive standpoint. And um uh he was given different scenarios um and then he was shown different perspectives uh from the field and above, and I was able to help him figure out what his best choice uh was. So, uh you know, how do you come up with the scenarios? Are these real game scenarios that you're presenting to these players to help them with the cognition aspects of their game?

• 5:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're they're uh exa- they're exact moments from games, let's say first team games. So in Arsenal's case, Arsenal's one of our um primary uh customers, lead customers. And we recreate um in real time, if need be, the exact replica in a virtual world of the game that's ongoing or has been played.

• 5:42Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  Um, so so once you, once you have this virtual world, if you can imagine, then you um as a player or a coach or even a fan can be placed in any perspective. You can see the game as Ozil sees the game. Um, and you can experience um what went, you know, what was going on on the pitch um at the moment that a particular decision was made. Um, so what it allows young players, as you're referencing in the academy of Arsenal or one of our other clients, Alzad Almorn in Holland. They train their academy players on a certain, you know, certain curriculum that allows them not only to

• 6:25Speaker 02

  to make decisions, but to discuss why decisions, you know, were made or should be made. So the, the, the takeaway from it is that we're, you know, we're able to train at a much younger age now, players to recognize, you know, pattern recognition, spatial awareness. You know, we always, we always talk about, you know, you have to check your show to receive more information in, in, in soccer, but if you're put into a virtual world, that is the difference between making a specific decision or, you know, correct or incorrect decision from a, from a team's perspective. Then you again can start to do the, you know, the reps and the repetitions of these kind of decision-making opportunities, and then you get a basis for, for learning.

• 7:10Speaker 02

  And also a basis for quantifying how a specific athlete, whether it be a, you know, a first-team player, whether it be an academy player, how well do they, you know, how, how, how functional is their cognitive abilities?

• 7:26Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah. Jeff, in one leap, you've landed on the moon. You've taken this giant step. I'm now sitting here as a former player thinking, what would I do if I'm fifteen, sixteen years of age? I wouldn't be close enough to the first team to have experience of playing. But you can give me that experience as a teenager, pop me straight into a game. Into a real game. I'm getting game speed, because I can tell you, you're used to playing academy games. Right. The paces of. A lot slower. You're in the slow lane. Yeah. Then you kind of come up a bit into a development squad that's under twenty-three, and then the big boys kick in. This, you're just all of a sudden doing two hundred miles an hour in the fast lane. And a lot happens very, very quickly. You can watch a game on TV and it looks quite slow.

• 8:10Gary O'Reilly?

  Put yourself in it, and there's no time to think. What you're doing is building thinking time through repetition and understanding, familiarity. No wonder the guys love this. Do you have players come to you after games and say, I want to see that back? Can you put me back in my virtual world? Wow. And then I can see where I should have been and done? Do they come to you and do that already?

• 8:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think there's a mix. There's players who, you know, really yearn for additional information and training, and then there's obviously performance and coaching-based staff who feel that certain players need to be put in those situations as much as possible to accelerate the learning process. So, you know, as an example, you were talking about being a fifteen or sixteen-year-old who can't necessarily physically cope with, you know, first-team football from a physical perspective, all of a sudden, we can put them in that same environment, as you said, with the game speed, and then you can train them cognitively.

• 9:15Speaker 02

  And cognitively, a player of thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen can keep up with, you know, the cognitive functions happening from a first-team player. So, if the game speed is exact, and the spacing is exact, and all the kind of, you know, if you think about it, the parts within this virtual world are authentic to the real game environment, then you can start to see, okay, which thirteen-year-old has a high aptitude on the cognitive side, which fourteen-year-old is better at pattern recognition, and then which fifteen-year-old

• 9:57Speaker 02

  actually finds solutions that maybe other players haven't found, or even your first-team players haven't found. So, there's no rupture, per se, but if you're able to put them in that environment, then when they become physically capable at, let's say, eighteen, nineteen, to compete with the first team or play with the first team, cognitively, they've already been there for years.

• 10:21Gary O'Reilly?

  It's like Jedi Warrior training. What's that? It's like Jedi Warrior training. Yes, you have, like, young Padawans that you're, you know, teaching to be Jedis. It is. I mean, I, yeah. It's like virtual lifesaver training. Without the saber. It is. It's pretty much going in that direction. I'm just sitting here now, and the thoughts occurred to me. The team that wins the World Cup in Russia in 2018, is it the team with the best tech, or is it the best team that wins, in your opinion?

• 10:50Speaker 02

  In our opinion, it's both. It's the team that has the best tech, which is certainly Germany, who they're our clients. They will be bringing Beyond Sports VR analysis and training tools to Russia with them. They've been, they've signed a contract with us late last year and for the, for the purposes of, of having a competitive advantage, you know, at the World Cup. So our staff, our team will be there with them. I also think they have a pretty, a pretty substantial, you know, technical and physical roster. So I think they're going to do all right even without our tech, but we think that the, you know, that the addition of the Beyond Sports tech will help them.

• 11:32Gary O'Reilly?

  I think in the British understatement, Jeff, I would go with they have a chance.

• 11:36Chuck Nice?

  Let me ask you this. What would you rather have in the World Cup? One team thoroughly trained, every scenario, cognitively superior, familiar with every unfolding scenario that could happen in a game. The other team plays basically on their instinct, but superior in every way physically. They are faster, they are stronger, they are, I'll say tougher.

• 12:09Gary O'Reilly?

  Which your favorite identical twin?

• 12:12Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, exactly. So which one would you rather have? Who would you throw your money on? You got a World Cup game. This is for all, this is for the big one. And you got one team, these guys, they can recognize any situation, they can play, they're more heady than any other team, but the other team faster, stronger, tougher, and you know, and they're good, I mean, they're good players, but they just don't have that kind of training. Who would you rather go with?

• 12:42Speaker 02

  Well, I think it's really a question of how do you see the evolution of sport really? And with the advent of dad-driven, you know, Hannah, but it that I think is pervasive amongst sports and the industry that I work in, of course, we tend to weigh, you know, more and more the, you know, cognitive strength of players and teams. You know, my, you know, my growing up, my, um, my love was for, for teams that were, you know, one step ahead all the time and were collectively, obviously, um, maybe more cognitive than, than their opponents. You know, you think of, of the Dutch in the seventies or, you know, potentially

• 13:25Speaker 02

  the Hungarians before that. Um, you know, there's obviously some great teams in, in the eighties, uh, on the club level. Um, so again, it's, it's, I think it's a more of a personal preference and situational. I think you'd probably find a, a, a team that was physically superior would win, you know, uh, four times out of the 10 and maybe, uh, you know, four times out of 10, a cognitively superior team would win and the other two would just be, uh, you know, would just be a toss-up.

• 13:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Toss-up. Hmm. Okay. Interesting. All right. So Jeff, we are here now in 2018 discussing what we think, or what I think is incredible in terms of cognitive skill development through VR. Where are you going to be working, not physically, but in terms of the tech, five years' time? Where's this headed?

• 14:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it's, it's a great, it's a great question that we, we talk about all the time. Um, our evolution as a, as a company and our product basically said we had to allow, um, professionals and professional teams the ability to see the game from any perspective. Um, and then I very quickly migrated to, well, if the, uh, players and staff could see the game from any perspective, why can't a fan? See the game and experience the game from any perspective. So, we work with broadcasters now, Fox Sports is one of our big clients. Okay. In Holland, so they're delivering our vantage points and our views to linear broadcast audiences now.

• 14:55Speaker 02

  Twice, twice on every game day weekend, they use our tech within their analytics and their color commentating. During games, halftime games, post games, to, you know, to give, you know, the, the more casual fan, um, this same type of experience. So that's one thing where it's going. Uh, um, the second area is directly to consumers. Um, we feel that there's gonna obviously be a huge, um, huge market, um, for, you know, consumers who wanna consume this type of content, want to create their own content, uh, want to see who they think like, want to put themselves in the position of Messi or Ozil or Iniesta or whatever it may be.

• 15:40Speaker 02

  Um, and, uh, those people who wanna relive specific moments. So, can I see, uh, the Philly special, uh, in the Super Bowl? Can I see it from Foles's perspective, the quarterback who turned into a receiver for, for probably one of the most iconic plays in Super Bowl history? Yes. Do I wanna be Nick Foles? Yes, I think I would, um, and I think a lot of people would like to relive things like that. So, I feel there's, there's all this kind of, um, consumer, um, based immersive, uh, experiences that are gonna come, um, very quickly. I think there's gonna be a lot of analytically driven use for what we do.

• 16:20Speaker 02

  Um, right now, we can, um, we can give insights to teams and coaches that just aren't available, uh, now. Opponent scouting, so imagine you can now scout your, by actually playing against them prior to the game. Yeah. Um, so. That's huge. You know, just, that's a huge advantage if you wanna play against a left back and you're a seven or eleven, um, you know, playing on the wing, you know, how, how, you know, how can you prepare? Well, I can play against that actual player, or at least I could, from a, you know, game perspective or game speed perspective, play against, uh, an avatar that is, uh, or a situation that is that player. So, I think there's, there's, you know, there's many.

• 17:04Speaker 02

  Return to play from injuries, you know, part of the physical rehabilitation process, keeping your cognitively, keeping yourself fit, which people, you know, maybe up to now haven't discounted. There's a huge, Gary, you would know as well, there's a huge difference between, you know, physically rehabilitating yourself and mentally being game.

• 17:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, yes, without a doubt, without a doubt. I'm, I'm just sitting here getting chills because I'm thinking, if I'm eighteen, sixteen years of age right now, I am so desperate for this tech. I am so desperate to find out what it's like to be where I've always thought I want to be. That's a, an international Premier League player, playing in La Liga, Bundesliga, whatever it is. And you can actually give that to me. I can bring myself to a higher level of performance. Well, how long, well, each individual is different, but it's amazing what you've just done. And I'm just thinking now, how soon before fans can be almost live, the players that you've just discussed and be in a virtual world, watching it. That's got to be the ultimate. To, to take a fan in the armchair, watching a game,

• 18:10Gary O'Reilly?

  and yes, I'm a quarterback, I'm hitting home runs, I'm slam dunking, I'm scoring goals. Wow. I'm just happy.

• 18:19Speaker 02

  And that's, that's actually, Gary, that's actually not so far off.

• 18:22Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 18:22Speaker 02

  You know, we do, we do that right now. Our technology is real time. So we're actually, our latency for all the, you know, the tech folks listening, you know, our latency is zero point oh one four seconds. So we're pretty much live quicker than the broadcast feed because we're, we're basically interpreting X, Y, Z coordinate data, which is, you know, obviously quicker into our system than any, any, you know, linear broadcast video that's, that's going over the, the airwaves. So we can do that. You can, you can, you can theoretically be in the head of a player. You know, pretty close to live.

• 18:59Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that's pretty wild, man. It's pretty wild.

• 19:02Gary O'Reilly?

  How long before Chuck and I get these things?

• 19:04Chuck Nice?

  Next week. Say next week. Say next week. Let's go with next week. Let's go with next week.

• 19:10Speaker 02

  Next week is fine.

• 19:11Chuck Nice?

  Okay, there we go. All right. All right. Fantastic. Yeah.

• 19:14Gary O'Reilly?

  Jeff, what a pleasure. Thank you.

• 19:16Chuck Nice?

  So cool to talk to you, man.

• 19:17Gary O'Reilly?

  You opened my eyes, and I know Chuck's got a thrill out of this. I think our listeners are gonna love it as well. Uh, we wish you, Beyond Sports and everybody, the very best of luck, and, uh, we are gonna be glued to the World Cup in Russia, that's for sure.

• 19:29Speaker 02

  Well, well, thank you for having us, and, um, you know, of course, if, uh, if Germany wins, it will be all because of Beyond Sports.

• 19:36Chuck Nice?

  And there you go. That's, we like that. That's, that's a man who knows how to market.

• 19:40Gary O'Reilly?

  Thank you to Jeff Saunders, CEO of Beyond Sports. We are going to take a break. When we come back, Professor Eric Goff gives us the physics behind this year's official World Cup ball, the Adidas Telstar 18. And if you've heard of Telstar before, mm, bit of a space link to that one. So, uh, we'll explain when we get back.

• 20:04Gary O'Reilly?

  Welcome back. I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 20:06Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 20:07Gary O'Reilly?

  And this is still Chuck Nice.

• 20:10Chuck Nice?

  This is still playing with science.

• 20:12Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, it is. Hope you're with us and not too confused. Right, joining us now, we're talking soccer. And to do that, we have Professor Eric Goff, the author of Gold Medal Physics and Presidential Physics at Lynchburg College in Virginia.

• 20:29Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, what is on the horizon, Professor, as regards the new Telstar 18 for the World Cup, their official ball?

• 20:39Speaker 03

  So we had the, uh, Brazuka ball, which was, uh, this nice colorful ball here back in, uh, 2014 in Brazil.

• 20:47Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 20:47Speaker 03

  And now in Russia, we're gonna be using the Telstar 18 ball, uh, both of which are made by Adidas. And you can tell the Telstar has a black and white, uh, color scheme. It honors the 1970 ball, uh, that was the first Adidas ball, was also called a Telstar. And the black and white back then, of course, helped people see the ball better on the television screens when not everybody had a color, color screen. So,

• 21:15Gary O'Reilly?

  Interesting.

• 21:16Speaker 03

  Pay homage to the past a little bit with this color scheme.

• 21:19Gary O'Reilly?

  And that's where the uh the similarities end, apart from the fact it's round.

• 21:22Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 21:23Speaker 03

  Oh, yes.

• 21:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Because the the original Telstar thirty two panels, hand stitched leather, if I'm not mistaken.

• 21:30Speaker 03

  That's right. The traditional ball, of course, has the thirty two panels. Uh you got the twenty uh hexagons and the thirty two, or sorry, the twelve pentagons.

• 21:38Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 21:39Speaker 03

  You got thirty two panels. This thing only has six panels on it. So we're we're getting the panel number down to an extremely low number to approaching a really uh perfect sphere.

• 21:51Chuck Nice?

  So can you tell us why why these panels? And why this? Because when you're looking at something with thirty two panels to make up a round ball, you're going through an awful lot to get to a sphere. So you know, it's.

• 22:07Gary O'Reilly?

  The the technology wasn't available in seventy, and I think there was, um the professor might back this up. Traditionally, balls came with sort of pentagonal and hexagonal shapes.

• 22:17Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 22:18Gary O'Reilly?

  And an awful lot of stitching and all for that. Now we have technology when you can thermally seal a ball and make it.

• 22:26Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 22:27Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 22:28Speaker 03

  These seams are now thermally bonded on the ball.

• 22:31Chuck Nice?

  So there's no stitching at all.

• 22:33Speaker 03

  No, they're they're not hand stitched like they used to be. And if you think about how difficult it is to make a sphere uh out of, you know, materials, cloth, leather, whatever it is.

• 22:43Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 22:43Speaker 03

  It it's a challenge. And the old thirty two panel design was a pretty good uh design for a sphere. You know, that's our Epcot Center, the Bucky Balls, that carbon sixty atom. The the spherical balls that we had in the past, uh that was a very good design, but these very uh strange panels that we've got now, these circuitous shapes for the panels, help us get down the panel number all the way to six.

• 23:09Chuck Nice?

  So now why panels at all? There are plenty of balls that uh you look at a basketball. I mean, that that has panels too, but you and even baseballs have panels, but that's for construction. So since you now have thermal sealing, why have any panels at all?

• 23:26Speaker 03

  Well, you've got a bladder inside of this ball and you've got to be able to get the bladder inside of this and you've got to be able to ensure that the ball stays round a spherical shape during play. So when it's being kicked and headed and rolling around on the pitch, it has to maintain a pretty spherical shape during play. It's very challenging to do that without any seams. So you you it certainly needs an opening to get the air into the ball.

• 23:51Chuck Nice?

  Right. So like so for instance, if I had

• 23:56Chuck Nice?

  two two um semicircle hemispheres and I put the bladder inside and then I just have one thermally bonded seal all the way around. Why wouldn't I use something like that to have just a totally smooth ball?

• 24:14Speaker 03

  So the seams do provide a little bit of structure to the spherical shape. Uh the the type of ball you're describing is going to be like a cricket ball. You're going to have two hemispheres coming together. Uh really good cricket balls actually have an extra seam on them as well. But the seams actually help provide that spherical shape a little bit better.

• 24:35Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 24:35Speaker 03

  Once you start denting a panel or something, there's no way for that to uh get pulled back out into the spherical shape.

• 24:43Gary O'Reilly?

  The thing is, we go back to Jubalani, South Africa 2010.

• 24:47Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 24:48Gary O'Reilly?

  The ball was hated by the players um because whether or not the factor of games were being played at sea level and games were being played at a mile high altitude uh affecting all sorts of things. But the design of the ball meant it it knuckleballed at uh

• 25:07Gary O'Reilly?

  lower speeds. Am I correct?

• 25:09Speaker 03

  So the real problem with Jabalani is the so-called drag crisis that Chuck loves.

• 25:15Chuck Nice?

  Oh, you know I do, girl.

• 25:16Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. So the

• 25:18Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wait, you meant like you meant like uh in physics, the drag crisis.

• 25:21Speaker 03

  In physics, that's right.

• 25:22Chuck Nice?

  Okay, because my drag crisis is completely different. We all know that.

• 25:26Gary O'Reilly?

  It's still a crisis.

• 25:26Chuck Nice?

  Yes, it's a crisis because my drag crisis is like, now, how am I supposed to perform in these heels when these uh you know they are way too tight. So.

• 25:34Gary O'Reilly?

  And and breeze.

• 25:36Speaker 03

  So the the physics drag crisis that we're talking about is where the the flow over the ball changes as you increase the ball speed from what's called laminar flow to turbulent flow. And the the problem with Jabalani is that crisis where that transition happens was right in the middle of the speed range where you saw a lot of free kicks and corner kicks. What was the great design of the Brazuca ball four years later is that they moved that drag crisis back to a lower speed so that essentially all of the kicks that took place at the corner kicks and the free kick speed range were in this turbulent speed range. So you did not have this transition taking taking place during the middle of a kick.

• 26:21Gary O'Reilly?

  However.

• 26:23Speaker 03

  Looked like a beach ball sometimes being kicked.

• 26:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, yeah, it was horrible. However, the Brazuca has now found itself in another iteration called Telstar 18. We've changed the shape of the panels as we highlighted. That then must mean something to the aerodynamics. All I know is it seems very much as if FIFA, the the world governing body, have decided that they don't like the goalkeepers and they like scoreless draws, scoreless games even less. So they're doing their best to make life difficult for the goalkeepers. And the best goalkeepers in the world like David de Gea and Ter Stegen from Germany have come out and said, we don't like Telstar 18.

• 27:07Gary O'Reilly?

  Are they being overly sensitive or do they actually have a point?

• 27:12Speaker 03

  Well, I think every time the World Cup rolls around and the new ball is out, keep in mind, this is $160. You know, it's 100 pounds in Great Britain. This is not a cheap ball.

• 27:23Gary O'Reilly?

  No.

• 27:24Speaker 03

  And it makes Adidas an enormous amount of money by selling these balls. They they fly off the shelves every time the World Cup comes out. So there's certainly a marketing desire for having a new ball every time. And every time the new balls come out, the players have to adjust and they have to get used to something new. So there's always going to be a little bit of squabbling. I don't think they're going to find the Telstar ball anywhere near as bad as the Jabalani was eight years ago.

• 27:51Gary O'Reilly?

  But it's got a different, the pa- the panels are a different shape, it's the same number in six, but there's a raised. Stippling, a raised pattern on the surface of the ball that is different to the Brazuka. How on earth is that going to make any sort of difference?

• 28:07Speaker 03

  So, the total seam length on this Brazuka, if I take the 2014 ball and I actually measure the entire seam length all the way around.

• 28:16Gary O'Reilly?

  Uh huh.

• 28:16Speaker 03

  It's about three and a third meters. If I do the same thing with the Telstar 18, it's four and a third meters. It's a whole extra meter, more than three feet long of seam. So, to make up for that added roughness of the ball, what they had to do was they made the actual seam height and the seam width on the Telstar a little bit narrower, a little bit shallower, and they actually made the texturing a little less tall than on the Brazuka ball. So, they compensated for the added seam length by having these crazier looking panels, by having slightly less roughened surface, and you get about the same aerodynamic effects by doing that, they offset each other.

• 29:00Chuck Nice?

  So, how do these balls compare to movement in flight to the original Telstar? Which is like what people really, when you think of a soccer ball.

• 29:10Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 29:11Chuck Nice?

  That's what you think of.

• 29:12Gary O'Reilly?

  You're going to iconic.

• 29:13Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's your, that is the one where you say soccer or football, like, that's the ball that comes into your mind. So, how would these balls perform different? I can't believe I just said that. How would they?

• 29:26Gary O'Reilly?

  Focus. Get your game head ons.

• 29:28Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I'm sorry.

• 29:29Gary O'Reilly?

  You're having another drag crisis, aren't you?

• 29:31Chuck Nice?

  I'm having a total drag crisis right now.

• 29:33Gary O'Reilly?

  Sorry, Professor.

• 29:34Chuck Nice?

  I know.

• 29:34Gary O'Reilly?

  Anyway. We have an errant pupil.

• 29:36Chuck Nice?

  How would these balls perform differently, uh, one to the next?

• 29:41Speaker 03

  So, if you look back to the stitched balls of the past, they did not maintain their spherical shape as well, they didn't perform as well when the, when there would be some wetness on the pitch, some weathering, the ball would be a lot faster. These thermally bonded balls, the technology is now such that they can maintain their spherical shape better, they keep the water out better, uh, they're going to be much more up to the high, uh, standards you would expect for a soccer ball for much longer during the game.

• 30:12Gary O'Reilly?

  Do you think this, the new design for Telstar 18 is going to affect? The style of football we see played by the teams in the World Cup because the jubalani certainly did because it was flying around. So you weren't getting the longer passes. Players who were hitting power shots in a game found that once it left their boot, they had basically no control over what would happen. The goalkeepers could might as well sit in the stand because they didn't know which way it was going either.

• 30:41Speaker 03

  Well, look how well Spain did with their short passing and that excellent passing game. I mean, that's what they were able to do with that javalani ball.

• 30:49Gary O'Reilly?

  Will Telstar 18 have a similar effect or will it be more egalitarian for all styles of football?

• 30:57Speaker 03

  So my colleagues in Japan have done some wind tunnel studies of these and I've done some trajectory analysis with that wind tunnel work here at Lynchburg College. And what I found was the Telstar ball for a really hard hit ball is going to travel about eight to nine percent less distance than the Brazil ball. So there'll be a slight reduction in the long range kicks and that's probably going to be noticed by the goalkeepers who are really trying to hit the ball down the pitch at great distance. Maybe for a really long free kick, they might notice a slight reduction in the in the overall distance.

• 31:35Chuck Nice?

  Let me ask you, when it comes to gambling, because it's a big deal for the World Cup. A lot of money is being bet on these games.

• 31:43Gary O'Reilly?

  And it's over a long period of time.

• 31:44Chuck Nice?

  And it's over a very long period of time. So is this information made available? Or have you ever thought about selling this information? Because like that's where I'm really going with this. Like we could really get this information out there to degenerate gamblers. It's very important.

• 31:57Gary O'Reilly?

  You're monetarizing the good professor's work.

• 31:59Chuck Nice?

  I'm just saying, your work is worth something, professor. Your work is really worth something. We can get this information out there because this ball design is going to be good for some teams and going to be really bad for others depending on your style of play. Isn't that true?

• 32:13Speaker 03

  So the, the, the paper we've got published is gonna be online very, very soon. And I'm happy to provide a copy to anyone who's interested.

• 32:22Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I've, I've already read the paper and you're telling me we're giving this stuff away for free? Doc, is that what you're telling me?

• 32:28Speaker 03

  It, it, it will be online at the, uh, Journal of Sports Engineering and Technology very soon.

• 32:34Chuck Nice?

  Are you even an American, sir? Are you even an American? You are giving your work away for nothing?

• 32:40Speaker 03

  That's called science, my friend.

• 32:43Gary O'Reilly?

  And we like it and the world's a better place for it. All right, well, let's not get too heavily into your paper because we want to take a break. And we will come back and we will go into depth about your findings with Telstar 18, so.

• 32:57Chuck Nice?

  Who knew you could get that much data off of a ball in a wind tunnel? You guys are, you guys are insane. You know that, right? Like, there's something wrong with you.

• 33:09Gary O'Reilly?

  No, they're scientists and if you put those sort of things in front of a scientist, they're going to be very, very analytical. Professor, please don't get angry. We'll take a break. More, more in-depth and less drag crisis when we get back. Our good friend, Professor Eric Goff.

• 33:31Gary O'Reilly?

  Welcome back. I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 33:33Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice.

• 33:34Gary O'Reilly?

  And this is Playing with Science and Chuck's just nipped out, got the polish for his tiara.

• 33:40Chuck Nice?

  Yes, I did.

• 33:40Gary O'Reilly?

  And we're changing the color of the heels and we're. We are hopefully coming out of that stage of Chuck's life, but we can.

• 33:49Chuck Nice?

  Coming out. Well, yes, I am, child. Loud and proud.

• 33:52Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, we still haven't really overhumped come that speed hump, have we? Uh, right. Just published a new paper. Let's focus, shall we? This is what the good professor, Professor Eric Goff, our very good friend, has done. And it is about Telstar 18, the official World Cup ball for Russia 2018.

• 34:10Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 34:11Gary O'Reilly?

  Uh, so the hazard, as we said, we've got a bit of heritage back to 1970 and Mexico. In the sense that it's black and it's white, but that's just about it.

• 34:19Chuck Nice?

  That's where it ends, right?

• 34:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 34:20Chuck Nice?

  So Professor, so I, I read in the paper that you sent the ball to Japan. Uh, one, why? Two, what kind of wind tunnel can you actually test a soccer ball in? And let me just say, for those who are listening, I'm sorry, because I jumped ahead. The professor sent the ball to Japan to be tested in a wind tunnel.

• 34:41Gary O'Reilly?

  They may have had balls already there.

• 34:42Chuck Nice?

  And they probably did.

• 34:43Gary O'Reilly?

  Didn't just fly it out.

• 34:44Chuck Nice?

  Maybe he didn't fly the ball over. Maybe he just told them, go down to your Japanese Walmart. Pick up a Telstar eighteen, okay? And throw it into your wind tunnel. But what I really wanna know, because I've seen wind tunnels and they're cavernous, number one, for the most part. They're used for, um, they're used for aeronautics and for cars and so.

• 35:06Gary O'Reilly?

  Cars and all sorts of things, but there we are.

• 35:08Chuck Nice?

  But, but what kind of wind tunnel can you actually effectively test a soccer ball in, professor?

• 35:15Speaker 03

  So, the, the, the beauty of being a scientist is that the one characteristic you need to be good at is you have to be like a child. You have to have things to play with. And when you get something like a brand new road cut ball, you got all kinds of ideas racing through your head about how you wanna test this thing. So, my colleagues in Japan will take the, the Telstar ball, and you have to destroy it. You have to open up the back part of this, attach a rod in it, and then you blow air from the wind tunnel over the ball at various speeds.

• 35:46Chuck Nice?

  Ah.

• 35:47Speaker 03

  What we're looking at is we change the speed of this from a very low airspeed to a very high airspeed on the ball. Is we're trying to figure out what kind of drag it feels, if it feels any sideways forces that are gonna lead to knuckling effects. And there are certainly some knuckling effects that you're gonna get out of these balls when they're not spinning.

• 36:06Gary O'Reilly?

  To make a ball, once it's kicked, not rotate, you're gonna have to put an awful lot of force directly through it. So as it travels almost as a still object.

• 36:17Speaker 03

  That's right. So if you kick it right through the center, uh, that's gonna lead to very little spin. If you move your, your boot off to the side, off, off center, then you're gonna get the ball to start spinning more.

• 36:28Gary O'Reilly?

  So, if, if I am beginning to strike the ball on either side, I would naturally.

• 36:36Gary O'Reilly?

  Give it some rotation and you're saying, once I do that as a player, there is a greater capacity for it to knuckle in flight?

• 36:44Speaker 03

  No, no, I'm saying it will knuckle when there's very little spin. So even when there's no spin at all, you can still get some sideways movement of the ball because the air comes off the ball slightly asymmetrically.

• 36:56Chuck Nice?

  And can we remind our listeners, maybe they didn't hear our other show about the soccer balls that we've done. When you talk about spin, can you give us the breakdown of what spin is doing to a ball as it moves through the air from one, over a distance?

• 37:10Speaker 03

  Sure. So as the, as the ball is spinning, so if it's spinning, if I look down on it, it's spinning counterclockwise and it's moving away from me. I'm going to see the left side of the ball whipping air back a little farther than on the right side of the ball. It's analogous to looking in the back of a boat at a rudder and you go to turn the rudder and you see the wake of the water turning sideways. Well, if the boat pushes the water in one direction, Newton's third law says the water's got to push the boat in the other direction. It's the same thing with the air. If the air comes off the back of the ball in one direction, the air's got to be pushing the ball in the other direction. So if I look down at a counterclockwise spinning ball, it's going to want to go from right

• 37:55Speaker 03

  to left when I'm looking down on it moving away from me.

• 37:57Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, so now with my player's head on, and you've just given me that information about when I'm curling the ball or when I'm hitting it with so much power it doesn't rotate. If I'm hitting it with power, I am now in a sort of free kick situation, maybe 20, 25 yards from goal, where I am looking not to bend it around the wall or over the wall, but I am looking to basically blast a hole in the back of the net. The sort of thing Cristiano Ronaldo does. And they have the way of striking the ball with the aperture directly onto it so as it then deforms the shape of the ball. Will we see even more effect because that's going to be something that excites the viewers?

• 38:42Gary O'Reilly?

  That's going to be something that gives goalkeepers a fantastically big problem.

• 38:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, so if you're really kicking for speed and your your boots going mostly through the center of the ball, you're going to get very little rotation. But the the surface is not completely symmetric. You're going to get that boundary layer of air separating in the back of the ball slightly asymmetrically, and you can cause the ball to start wobbling a little bit through the air. And yeah, the goalkeepers are not going to enjoy that.

• 39:08Chuck Nice?

  So that wobble, it it literally is a knuckleball. Yeah. At that point, like in baseball, what you call a knuckleball, that's that's the kind of movement that you're going to get, that kind of, you know, back and forth, you don't know where it's going type of movement.

• 39:20Speaker 03

  And just like a baseball, you a good knuckleball that's thrown in baseball, you want to have a good half a rotation or so on the way to the plate so that you can get certain seams and certain smooth areas exposed to the air alternating. And that's what causes the ball, a knuckleball, to wiggle.

• 39:38Chuck Nice?

  Kind of wiggle.

• 39:39Speaker 03

  Same thing with the the soccer ball. You get a slight rotation of the ball, and you can change that asymmetry where the ball's air is coming off, and that'll cause it to wobble a little bit.

• 39:49Gary O'Reilly?

  Wow. Did your findings produce anything else? Because I'm just thinking about the mentality of basically every football player. How can I use this to my advantage and win? How can I score goals? How can I make something happen that is advantageous to me as an individual, to us as a team? Did you come up with any other findings you think may have some effect on play or an individual with free kicks? Corners is another one you mentioned.

• 40:19Speaker 03

  So we we've tested balls from the speed range of about 16 miles per hour to about 78 miles an hour. And we've got the whole host of data for the aerodynamic coefficients for these balls. And what we've what I had mentioned before is if you look at the the high speed kicks, the Telstar is going to go a little less far than compared to Brazuka for these really long kicks. You can certainly get some orientations of the ball where you get a little bit more sideways movement than some other orientations. It's just it's the challenge in a wind tunnel when you break the ball is that you can only study one orientation at a time. So we certainly don't have a whole, you know, series of orientations for the ball in the

• 41:04Speaker 03

  wind tunnel. It just it takes too many balls to do that.

• 41:07Gary O'Reilly?

  Hmm. Here's here's a thought for you. Does the ball contain a microchip of any kind?

• 41:15Speaker 03

  I have heard that you can put, I believe Telstar 18, you can do that. You can have a a ball inside of it and you can actually use a GPS tracker to figure out where the ball is.

• 41:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Ah, because we've, we've encountered this with Wilson, the guys who make the American footballs and they have that GPS tracking and therefore you can get telemetrics. I'm just wondering if that technology is inside Telstar 18, who's going to be getting access to it? FIFA or the countries that are playing?

• 41:48Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 41:49Gary O'Reilly?

  Or is it?

• 41:49Speaker 03

  I, I don't know. It, it's very difficult to get the technology information from Adidas because of course their information's proprietary.

• 41:58Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 41:59Speaker 03

  And, you know, they don't want the world to know.

• 42:01Chuck Nice?

  I think you just answered the question.

• 42:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean.

• 42:04Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, Adidas is, is the one that's gonna end up with all the information.

• 42:08Gary O'Reilly?

  Anybody with a conspiracy theory mind will tell you now that if there's technology inside the ball, someone's going to be trying to find a way.

• 42:17Chuck Nice?

  To hack it. Yeah. You got to. Are you kidding me? And you know who's gonna do that? Tom Brady. Come on.

• 42:23Gary O'Reilly?

  You couldn't have it. You've changed sports and blamed Brady.

• 42:28Speaker 03

  I think the little GPS is gonna start deflating the, the soccer ball here.

• 42:33Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, alright, okay. So deflation, direction, oh dear, come on. If there's tech in there, someone's going to be thinking, I wanna hack this. It's a challenge. Someone, somewhere's thinking, I'm up for this challenge.

• 42:46Chuck Nice?

  Even if they don't need the information, somebody's gonna hack it just for the hell of it. You know that.

• 42:50Gary O'Reilly?

  Isn't that right?

• 42:51Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Hey, why change the ball at all? What, what the hell is happening that they do this every, why?

• 42:55Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, I think the professor touched on the fact that.

• 42:58Speaker 03

  Money.

• 42:58Gary O'Reilly?

  Thank you.

• 42:59Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 43:00Gary O'Reilly?

  Really. Big money. So how many balls are manufactured a year? Do, as a question, I'm, I've just thought that and thinking you may not know, but do you have an idea? Rough, ballpark figure?

• 43:11Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, you gotta think you got a billion people watching the, the World Cup or that are certainly interested in it. And I mean, even if you take it down to a, you know, a percentage or something, hundreds of thousands of these balls that are gonna be flying. Off the shelves at a hundred and sixty bucks a pop.

• 43:28Chuck Nice?

  Hey, listen, it makes sense to me. I mean, you know, the NFL receives a little flack as teams. There was a point where all the teams were changing their uniforms.

• 43:38Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 43:39Chuck Nice?

  And then they figured out, oh, they're not updating their uniforms. They're creating sales at.

• 43:45Gary O'Reilly?

  It's merchandising.

• 43:46Chuck Nice?

  Goods stores. That's all they're doing. It's they're increasing their merchandising.

• 43:51Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, soccer teams have done this for years. I mean, some soccer teams will have three different uniforms.

• 43:56Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 43:56Gary O'Reilly?

  They'll have one of which they play in their home venue.

• 44:00Chuck Nice?

  Uh huh.

• 44:00Gary O'Reilly?

  And if they play away from home, there will be another one, but that second change of uniform might clash. So they have a third, and guess what? People buy them.

• 44:12Chuck Nice?

  I'm sure they will.

• 44:13Gary O'Reilly?

  And they will be, each season it will be different. So therefore.

• 44:16Chuck Nice?

  You have one home, that's your home colors, and then you have two away uniforms, just in case your team's colors clash with the other team's colors.

• 44:22Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 44:22Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 44:23Gary O'Reilly?

  Or it's just a cynical marketing ploy to make money.

• 44:27Chuck Nice?

  Now, you know I can't hate on a costume change.

• 44:29Gary O'Reilly?

  No, no, you can't. Let it go. So professor, do we? Do we have any synergy between the ball being manufactured as it is and then a range of footwear? That comes out that might be more inclined to get the best out of the ball? Or are we going too far into a rabbit hole with this?

• 44:51Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 44:52Speaker 03

  I think the main choice that the players are using with their boot is going to be the playing surface. I mean, they're going to want to know how much grip they're going to want to need. I mean, most of the time they're running on the surface as opposed to actually having contact with the ball.

• 45:06Gary O'Reilly?

  True, true.

• 45:08Speaker 03

  When you get these stats about running, you know, ten kilometers during a game or something, I mean, the percentage of the time they're actually in contact with the ball is pretty small. So I think the interaction with the turf and the pitch is the most important.

• 45:21Gary O'Reilly?

  No, I just wondered when, I mean, Adidas make footwear as well as they do make other sorts of things, but you, I know the Predator range was always driven for manufacture to impart power, but more accuracy through the ball.

• 45:38Gary O'Reilly?

  So I I just wondered if there was this sort of connected thought process that new ball, new boots, but the boots will be more beneficial used with this ball.

• 45:47Chuck Nice?

  If you use that ball, that's a good idea, actually. And guess what? Now that you said it, they'll probably do that.

• 45:52Gary O'Reilly?

  They've probably done that.

• 45:53Chuck Nice?

  It's another moneymaker. Um, let me ask you this. One, do they talk to the players when they do they ever consult the players before they do a ball change? And two, why, why do they not change the size of the balls? Is that just like?

• 46:07Gary O'Reilly?

  No, they're standardized.

• 46:08Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it's standardized.

• 46:09Gary O'Reilly?

  It is a standard size.

• 46:10Chuck Nice?

  So I'm just saying, like, if you're, if you're changing the panels and all that kind of stuff, why not make it bigger or smaller? And what would that do to you if you made the ball bigger or smaller?

• 46:18Speaker 03

  So if you make the ball bigger, then the, the larger area of the ball would lead to more air resistance on it. If you make it smaller, then of course you'd have even smaller air resistance. The, the ball is just about, just under a pound in, in weight. And the, the size of the ball is fairly standard. I mean, if you made a change, like the actual size of the ball, that would drastically alter the, the game that's played right now.

• 46:43Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 46:44Speaker 03

  Um, I mean, subtle aerodynamic differences are one things for players to get used to. But if you change the weight and size of the ball, uh, I mean, hand a softball to a baseball player and say, here, use this, it's just, it's completely different.

• 46:57Chuck Nice?

  And they, and they tell you, I play a real sport. I'm sorry.

• 47:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:02Gary O'Reilly?

  If you, if you made a soccer ball, a football larger, then you would have to acquire a new set of skills to be able to work with it. Because the way you kick it, the way you control and run with it, you would have to readjust. You would have to adapt to that. I, I'd like to revisit that bit where you said about weight. How much lighter is Telstar 18 to the original Telstar, if you know?

• 47:26Speaker 03

  Oh, they're very close in weight. Uh, the, the modern balls tend to be just a tiny bit heavier, uh, than the, the current balls right now. I mean, I think this is about point nine five pounds. Uh, the older balls tend to be just very slightly less than that.

• 47:42Gary O'Reilly?

  How interesting, there's not a great deal of difference in the weight, although we've got every technical innovation in the, in the new ball, yet the weight is the same. What happens if we made it lighter? Does it just become a smaller beach ball?

• 47:56Speaker 03

  That's right. I mean, the, the, the drag force that acts on it is not, does not have anything to do with the ball's weight, but of course the acceleration does. So if you made the ball lighter, then it's going to have more acceleration and you are going to get more of that beach ball type effect.

• 48:11Chuck Nice?

  So do they ever talk to the players about, I mean, I mean, these are all, these seem to be that all of these things really affect the game, primarily the players. Do they ever consult them or is that not necessary?

• 48:22Gary O'Reilly?

  Professor, you, you have a thought on that because I know I have one, but I'd like to hear yours first, please.

• 48:28Speaker 03

  I don't know that Adidas, you know, especially discusses the actual World Cup design of the ball with the players. I mean, the idea is you can change the panel design and you can change the, the way in which the seams are oriented or the texturing, but at the end of the day, you want the ball to behave aerodynamically, very much like what they're used to, uh, which is why Jabalani was a problem. So, you know, you could roll this thing out ahead of time and of course they're going to be able to play with it before they get to the World Cup, but you roll this thing out and you, you get the opinion of the players and you're always going to get some squawking, but I mean, as long as it behaves aerodynamically like what they're used to, they just have to get used to a slightly different feel from the texturing and all that. But, you know, I don't, I don't know

• 49:13Speaker 03

  that they consult with the players too much.

• 49:16Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm with the professor. I don't think there's a great deal of conversation when it comes to the ball. In the end, it's the same for both teams.

• 49:25Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I was going to say, everybody's playing with the same ball.

• 49:26Gary O'Reilly?

  It's not, it's not a variable.

• 49:27Chuck Nice?

  So there's no advantage for anybody.

• 49:28Gary O'Reilly?

  No, there's, so it's not as if one team is playing with a different ball to the other. It's the same ball all the time. When it comes to footwear, the players have far more say in terms of design, what's good, how they feel, what they want, where they see it. And that then sort of, and this crosses a lot of sports, particularly with the, the big brands. But, uh, when it comes to the ball, I think it's basically, this is the ball you'll be playing with, deal with it.

• 49:53Chuck Nice?

  Oh man, that would be so cool then. You have a World Cup where surprise ball. No team knows what ball they're gonna be using for that particular game.

• 50:05Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, that's a different sport.

• 50:06Chuck Nice?

  I'm telling you, that would be awesome.

• 50:08Gary O'Reilly?

  Now I'm interested.

• 50:09Chuck Nice?

  That would be awesome. And so the teams come out on the field and they're just like, oh, damn, Jubalani.

• 50:17Speaker 03

  Or the Jabstar22.

• 50:19Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you have no idea what ball you're gonna be using when the game. That would be amazing. That would be amazing.

• 50:25Gary O'Reilly?

  If you were the head of FIFA, you would probably become the most hated man, not just on the planet, ever, ever.

• 50:35Chuck Nice?

  I want that job.

• 50:37Speaker 03

  I thought their previous head of FIFA was already the most hated man on the planet.

• 50:41Gary O'Reilly?

  I think Chuck would surpass him if he were able to introduce that kind of legislation with the ball.

• 50:46Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God. Nothing would make me happier.

• 50:49Gary O'Reilly?

  Right. And on that note, I have to say, thank you, Professor. It's been fabulous to explore your findings with Telstar18, the official World Cup football for Russia 2018. And yeah, thank you to Jeff Saunders.

• 51:02Chuck Nice?

  Jeff Saunders, what a great.

• 51:03Gary O'Reilly?

  Beyond sports, what they're doing has really raised the bar.

• 51:07Chuck Nice?

  They're headed to the infinity and beyond. Oh, God, that was awful. That was just terrible.

• 51:14Gary O'Reilly?

  But at least Chuck's happy. Right. I've been Gary O'Reilly.

• 51:17Chuck Nice?

  And I've been ashamed of myself. I'm Chuck Nice.

• 51:21Gary O'Reilly?

  And this has been Playing with Science, and we love Chuck. And we will love you and we'll see you all soon. Thank you to our guests. It's been a pleasure.