Dr. John Eric Goff has joined the regular cast of a new podcast that explains the science of sports.
“Playing with Science” is “where geeks and jocks collide,” according to StarTalk’s announcement of the new podcast. The show features sports analyst Gary O’Reilly and comedian Chuck Nice as hosts, and Neil deGrasse Tyson is another recurring participant. Each episode includes interviews with professional athletes, and Dr. Goff joins the discussion to explain the physics of amazing sports moments.
In the first episode, “Welcome to Playing with Science,” Dr. Goff provided commentary about the concept of luck, Franco Harris’s 1972 “Immaculate Reception,” and other items of football physics. In “The Science of the Catch,” he explained how an odds-defying catch by Odell Beckham Jr. in 2014 was even more amazing when they physics of the situation come into play. “The laws of physics definitely constrain what we can do, but what Beckham did was show us the absolute limits of what we’re constrained by,” he told the hosts.
For an upcoming episode, Tyson interviewed Lance Armstrong and Dr. Goff provided physics commentary on the interview.
Playing With Science can be found on StarTalk, iTunes, Google Play Music, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and TuneIn.
Dr. Goff is well known for his research on sports physics, especially the science of the Tour de France, and frequently talks to journalists who want to learn about physics in the context of athletic performance. He is the author of Gold Medal Physics: The Science of Sports.