College Profile 2023

The of the game science

Where Tiger fans see tackles and touchdowns, Amy Pope sees physics

W hile most Clemson football fans see linebackers making a tackle or a defensive back deflecting a pass away from an awaiting receiver, Amy Pope sees physics in action. Each Tiger football game offers thousands of opportunities for Pope, a senior lecturer in the Clemson Univer sity Department of Physics and Astron omy, to teach Sir Isaac Newton’s laws of motion or one of the many other laws governing physics. Physics is prevalent, from the open ing kickoff to a potential game-ending field goal.

‘I tell students they already know a lot about physics. They just don’t realize it yet.’

Senior Lecturer Amy Pope

“Football is a game of physics,” said Pope, who teaches ‘Physics of Sports,’ a general education physics course that uses football, NASCAR, the Olympics and other sports to teach a science that many students fear. “It really should be called a physics game.”

The football field is where sports and science collide. Take a long touchdown pass, for instance. For Pope, it’s the perfect opportunity to talk about kinematics, the branch of physics that deals with motion. The same goes for a long field

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CLEMSON UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF SCIENCE | 2023 COLLEGE PROFILE