Quantum mechanics obsolete?!
by Herr EdWCH was fascinated to discover that the England football team is directly shaping current developments in theoretical physics. Professor Antti Mattor, lecturer in Quantum Sociology at the University of Long Eaton, provides an overview for our readers:
“The dialectical relationship between football and science is particularly acute in my field, theoretical physics. Let me explain! The incredible success of Newton’s laws and other physical theories in the ‘classical age’ led to the idea of scientific determinism. This determinism suggests the laws of physics should allow us to predict what the complete state of the universe will be at any point in the future. Until quite recent times football matches fitted in neatly with this view of the universe. Teams up to the 1950s played within a rigid ‘W-M’ formation and the movement of players during a match could be predicted very accurately according to classical principles. Teams never deviated from this W-M structure so the same pre-determined roles would be assumed by players game after game.
“From the start of the 1950s football began to challenge this deterministic vision. This was perhaps most obviously realized with the totalvoetbal played by the Holland team of the 70s. The Dutch team, led by coach Rinus Michels, creatively used the space on the pitch, and players would not be constrained by their designated roles; for example, full-backs would push forward and overlap wingers, and even centre-halves could support the attack, with midfielders dropping to cover them. Players’ positions and movement were no longer rigidly determined, and this was entirely commensurable with the progress of physics throughout the 20th century. Classical physics had gradually been eroded by several developments, such as quantum mechanics, which demonstrated that it was not possible to establish both the position and velocity of a particle with complete precision - therefore an element of uncertainty must permeate our predictions. This less rigid probabilistic framework gifted physicists the perfect tools with which to apprehend the less predictable, but still highly organised football being played by teams such as Holland.
“However, some of the latest developments in football have completely dumbfounded scientists: the working title for this nascent body of evidence is ‘quantum nonsense theory’. Over recent years the England midfield has been so disorganised that it defies explanation with reference to any existing paradigm. For example, at Euro 2004 England fielded Scholes, Gerrard, Lampard and Beckham: that’s three attacking central midfielders and a right midfielder in one midfield! Unsurprisingly the position and velocity of the players was impossible to predict, even within a framework informed by the non-deterministic principles of quantum mechanics. Scholes and Beckham would randomly drift infield from their flanks, and the movement of Lampard and Gerrard in central midfield was utterly inexplicable.
“We have now studied many England games when unsuitable players have been positioned on the left, or inappropriate players paired together in central midfield, but as yet our mathematical modelling systems are not sophisticated enough to discern any patterns [Fig 3]. However, further data collection may be possible at World Cup 2006, as England’s midfield looked far from settled in pre-tournament games. Scientists believe that if we crack the England midfield enigma, this could provide us with a complete unified vision of the physical world!”
June 6th, 2006 at 12:03 pm
does this mean, as I long suspected, that Sven’s tactics do not add up?
June 6th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
Sven + England team - Rooney x media hype = group stage exit
June 6th, 2006 at 1:27 pm
This is pure non-linear dynamic systems analysis. England just has not found the coordinates for the 4-man midfield Joliet set that produces a solid state. The problem is that with 3 attacking middies you tend toward chaos. Pure mathematics, not even physics.
June 6th, 2006 at 2:36 pm
Maths without physics is like language without voice.
June 6th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
I don’t recall there being any physics in mathematics lessons when I was at school.
Anyway, back to football. I think disorganisation can sometimes be a valuable tool to have up your sleeve, especially if your opponents are in a state of semi-organisation or faux-organisation. An excellent example of this was Cameroon beating Argentina in 1990.
June 6th, 2006 at 3:23 pm
I agree that the Cameroon v Argentina game is a perfect example. Just like sub-atomic particles disregarding the laws of classical mechanics, the Cameroon defence blatantly disredarded the rules of football. A few scything takles later and we had one of the biggest upsets in world cup history.
However, I fear that by tinkering with his formation so close to the start of the tournament Sven may be taking the uncertainty principle a bit too literally.
June 6th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
If Sven can tell his players to tackle like the Indomitable Lions did against (maybe with 3% less madness) then England will be okay against Paraguay.
June 6th, 2006 at 5:51 pm
Actually there is something to the idea of constrained chaos in the midfield to disrupt an extremely well-organized team, but that can also be quite the double-edged sword.
June 7th, 2006 at 9:11 am
I’ve often thought one could know the location of Joe Cole on the pitch, but not the direction he’s moving in and vice versa.
June 7th, 2006 at 9:37 am
Interesting thought Ghost.
I have sometimes wondered how it is possible that what Graham Poll sees when he is officiating and what actually happens on the pitch are completely different.
What branch of science deals with this?
June 7th, 2006 at 12:36 pm
I think this would come under the wave-particle duality concept, whereby every tackle is both a clean challenge and a foul at the same time, until ‘measured’ by an observer, in this case Mr Poll, but at the same time, the same tackle can be observed by a different person and be shown to have properties incongruent to what Mr Poll observes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave-particle_duality
June 7th, 2006 at 2:43 pm
Does this explain why free-kicks get given for non-existent pushing in the box at corners?
June 7th, 2006 at 6:26 pm
Could be, Wes, but it brings to my mind the ‘path of least resistance’ of electricity, in that, faced with a tricky decision, it’s always easier just to give a free kick to the defending team.
June 8th, 2006 at 8:58 am
Thanks for your help Rick.
Another thing that I have been pondering is why we have a circle around the centre spot when penalty boxes are rectangular.
June 8th, 2006 at 10:11 am
I think the circle around the centre spot used to be the outline of the ball. In a similar way to the development of microchips, footballs have got smaller and smaller, so that nowadays the ‘centre circle’ is redundant.
The penalty area is rectangular because the ‘goal’ used to be in the inside of a public house. Due to saftery concerns after several stampedes in the 1680s the goals were moved outside. The white lines remain as a reminder of the outer and inner walls of the pub.
June 9th, 2006 at 11:56 am
Thanks Helger.
What is the point of corner flags? Surely people can tell where the pitch ends? You don’t have a barrier all round the pitch now do you?!!
June 9th, 2006 at 2:41 pm
Corner flags are there for two reasons:
1. for certain “stars” to mime singing down/pole dance around following a goal as part of their celebration.
2. to provide comedy “What happened next?” type moments when players crash into them often up-rooting them.
A possible third reason for them is to house the radio masts that provide GPS positioning for pin-point accuracy crosses as demopnstrated by the entire England team when they stroll to the World Cup Final!