Well just to get some personal expert perspective on this I called my brother who is an aerospace engineer and deals with atmospheric pressure on a daily basis. Even better he is not a football fan so doesn't care a bit about the result. According to him (I will give you the bottom line and a direct quote) "...as an aerospace engineer I could write you a very complicated and detailed explanation backed up with physics to explain every part of this perfectly, but in reality it would require an absolutely perfect storm for it all to come together and it would have such low odds of happening it would be practically impossible. The fact that one of the balls behaved differently in the same environment and under the same controls is highly suspicious and the Patriots' success rate in regards to ball protection since the rules changed in the NFL is outrageously suspicious. In short, I can use math to prove they didn't cheat, even though the likelihood that they did cheat is about 99.99%".
On the question of physics I will take his word.
I want to SEE your math, please. Put out or get out.
You misunderstand. I did not ask my brother for math, nor did he provide any. He was pissed enough that I bothered him on a Saturday asking a football related question as it was. His point was that he
could write an equation to show anything someone wanted. As he put it "pay me enough and I will write you an equation showing how an elephant can stand on a teacup without it breaking".
His point was that
math would only be required to prove the improbable rather than the other way around because basic common sense tells you all you need to know. I will spell it out for you a bit more slowly.
We have an experiment repeated twice. In each experiment 12 balls were handled the same way and in the same environment. All were inflated to 12.5 psi. The balls were then introduced into the same colder environment and the difference was measured. In the first run 11 of the balls dropped 2 psi and one stayed the same. What that means it you somehow have a situation where the laws of physics are working one way in 11 of the balls and a different way in the 12th ball. So you repeat the experiment and this time none of the balls show any change.
The only thing that has remained constant is the reaction of the 12th ball that showed no change in both experiments. In the second run the other 11 balls re-enforced the results of the only thing that was constant in both experiments...the no change reaction of the 12th ball. Hence a naturally occurring phenomenon is probably not the issue.
Could it be some form of physical defect? Leaky valves or perhaps the inner bladders of the first 11 were damaged due to initial over inflation? Perhaps but if they leaked in the first half they would leak in the second half too. So physical defection of the balls is probably not the case.
Ok what about a psi gauge that is not correctly calibrated? Possible, but provided it was left alone and not tampered with between experiments the gauge would show similar results. So that's probably not the case.
So what else is left? Human intervention which, either by accident or intent, resulted in the deflation of 11 balls in the first experiment only. In other words, someone let air out of the balls.
It's really not that tough