Edward Willett

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Hey, that’s me on Newsworld!

My interview on Newsworld regarding the science of soccer did indeed air today at 11:15 a.m. I captured it and YouTubed it for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

Posted by Edward Willett at 4:55, July 23rd, 2007 under Blog | Comment now »

Me on Newsworld

Yesterday CBC Newsworld contacted me about doing a short segment on the science of soccer, in honour of the FIFA Under-20 World Cup now being played in Canada. (If you google "The Science of Soccer," the column I wrote in 2002 is the first hit.)I did the interview this morning on the lawn outside CBC Regina. I couldn't see the interviewer (Susan Pedlar) and she couldn't see me, but everything went fairly smoothly. At least, I don't think I said anything stupid. (I hope not. I really don't want soccer fans mad at me...) And I didn't drop the soccer ball I was holding, either, so that's a plus.I don't know when the segment ...

Posted by Edward Willett at 17:48, July 20th, 2007 under Blog | Comment now »

Robocup

  Picture this: it's World Cup 2050. The preliminaries are over and the two finalists are facing each other in the first-place game. Onto the field trot two teams--but only one of them is human. The other is made up of robots. Today we're accustomed to robots that do everything from build cars to defuse bombs and explore other planets. Ten years ago, Alan Mackworth, a professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia, wondered "Why shouldn't they play soccer, too?" He mentioned the idea in a paper entitled "On Seeing Robots." At about the same time, a group of Japanese researchers organized a workshop on "Grand Challenges in Artificial Intelligence." That workshop led to serious ...

Posted by Edward Willett at 21:13, June 25th, 2002 under Blog, Columns, Science Columns | Comment now »

Soccer

Watch me explain the science of soccer on CBC Newsworld, July 22, 2007: Hundreds of millions of soccer fans are now tuning in to the World Cup, where they'll see, not just exciting games, but a fascinating display of scientific principles. Let's start with the ball. The basic physics haven't changed: when a ball is kicked, the side that's kicked flattens out, then snaps back into shape, hurling the ball away. But this year's ball, the Fevernova, is new. The Fevernova is covered with polyurethane instead of leather. Beneath that is syntactic foam, consisting of equal-sized, highly elastic gas-filled microcells, designed to give the ball more bounce, so it travels ...

Posted by Edward Willett at 14:49, June 4th, 2002 under Blog, Columns, Science Columns | Comment now »