DailyDirt: Skipping Across The Water

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Thu, Mar 3rd 2016 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Skipping objects like stones across a calm lake is fun when you're a kid, but it also involves some interesting physics that could be useful for other applications. The Water Bouncing Ball toy can turn anyone into a pretty good "stone" skipper (though, maybe not hitting a record-setting 88 skips). Understanding how objects can skip across water could lead to better ways to travel across water, possibly making shipments cheaper or faster.

An elastic ball can deform into an "ideal" disc-like shape when it skips and hits the surface of a pool of water. Studying the Waboba could result in better aquatic toys, but it could also help design a new kind of water-skipping vehicle or Wallis bomb. [url]
The South American basilisk lizard can "walk" on water by taking 20 steps per second (about 3 mph). This lizard's feet need to slap the water and produce an air cavity that keeps the reptile from sinking for about 10-20 yards, and if a person could pull off this trick, he/she would probably need to be running at about 65 mph. [url]
Some researchers recommend skipping a stone so that it hits the water at a 20 degree angle. Physics researchers built a machine that threw aluminum discs across a pool of water with varying speeds and angles, and if the technique can be perfected, it might be a bit depressing to see another machine beating a human record by an insanely large margin. [url]

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Filed Under: basilisk lizard, jesus lizard, physics, skipping stones, waboba, walking on water, wallis bomb, water bouncing ball

7 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 3 Mar 2016 @ 5:22pm

I fully expect Atlas ver 9.3.1 to be able to run across water at 65 mph... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVlhMGQgDkY
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Anonymous Anonymous Coward, 3 Mar 2016 @ 7:07pm

Curmudgeon Alert
Planing hull sailboats is sufficient technology, thank you very much. Hydrofoils go beyond necessity. They are exciting to watch, especially when they screw up, but are impractical for the average sailor. Study something that makes plane old sailing better. Maybe like this, but powers that be help you if you wind up with no wind and an adverse current.
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Paul Renault (profile), 3 Mar 2016 @ 7:38pm

"another machine beating a human record by an insanely large margin"
No, it's a team of scientist plus a machine plus a power grid beating a human record by an insanely large margin."

If you put a five-year old child by itself next to a machine also by itself, the child will outskip the machine.

The machine, of course, won't do anything.
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Anonmylous, 3 Mar 2016 @ 8:09pm

Re: "another machine beating a human record by an insanely large margin"
Plus the machine skips aluminum discs, not stones. It won't beat humans at throwing non-conformist objects through anything but sheer power and even that can be matched by a human with a tool. That is what we do, improvise tools to get a task done using our bodies.

Its great they want to understand the physics of skipping objects, but realistically, a human body is more suited to throwing a massive variety of objects, more than any constructed mechanical arm, by a wide margin. And until we can figure out how to improve on that, it won't change. We're still constructing tools for specific tasks with narrow rulesets. Within those rulesets, yes you can outperform a human. On a single task. Can that same machine flip an omelet, write a sentence in flowing cursive script, open a jar of peanutbutter, and juggle a pair of oranges? Cause with a little practice, every human can do all of that and still skip a rock across a pond.
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Ninja (profile), 4 Mar 2016 @ 5:43am

Re: Re: "another machine beating a human record by an insanely large margin"
Read your comment while listening to "The Eye of the Tiger" for added impact.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Mar 2016 @ 6:52am

Machine beating man...
Back in the days of "iron men and wooden ships", gunners would aim their guns to graze the sea, causing cannon balls to "skip" and thus extend their range. Does that count?

If not, what about the Dam Buster raid? Machine (Lancaster Bombers, with spinning motors for the bombs) dropped the bombs at speed and they then bounced across the Dam lakes until the hit the dams, travelling an outrageously greater distance than any person can skip a stone. The bombs were also far heavier than any person could lift.
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klaus (profile), 6 Mar 2016 @ 11:22pm

Re: Machine beating man...
Barnes Wallace confessed to Wing Commander Gibson that the "bouncing bomb" was not completely his idea, and that Lord Nelson found that he could increase the destructive power of cannonballs by getting them to ricochet off the water.

BW: "Usually he pitched them about two thirds of the way between his guns and the target. But there is some evidence to suggest that during the Battle of the Nile he dismissed the French flagship with a yorker."
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