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Stone Skipping the Scientific Way
Quirk writes "National Geographic has a bit on the scientific analysis of stone skipping. Using a machine launching aluminum disks Lyderic Bocquet, a physics professor at the University of Lyon, and his colleagues discovered the 'magic angle' of 20 degrees as that required to maximize skipping. 'Jerdone Coleman McGhee of Wimberley, Texas, holds the current Guinness Book of World Records title for a 1992 toss that yielded an impressive 38 bounces across the Blanco River in central Texas'"
what they'll be doing at the next foo camp ;)
USE='clever' emerge -u sig
What we should REALLY be trying to figure out is how to skip more massive stones. That's the next step.
This one time, me and some people were skipping stones *hardcore* style. We got the biggest flat rocks we could lift and tried to spin them. Usually they just glided, but sometimes they would skip fairly high.
Of course, once the government got hold of this technology, they would put it to use bombing Iraq.
Esoteric reference.
I think this is much more about bored scientists.
The more you know, the less you understand.
I hear it's a lot easier after the lake freezes over.
...good to see tax payer/student dollars at work
...geeks bringing a stone skipping machine to tweak and experiment with while they go camping with their Wi-Fi gear. Can't we have a normal camping trip? =)
My innocent childhood hobby has been ruined with the introduction of science and actual calculations! Not to mention that I've only ever been able to get like five skips. *runs to hide*
Try actually thinking for yourself. It's quite refreshing.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
This is what science is all about. Mars? Please. Nanotubes? Come on! Stealth? Get real. Now stone skipping, that's worth at least a Master's dissertation... This has the possibility to advance toy technology YEARS!
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Only in GW Bush's homestate would National Geographic stoop this low. Next they'll be flinging cow pies.
or snow, or imperfections made by wind on the water, or warping for other reasons.
Yes, yes, yes, but if we just assume a spherical Lake Oneida in free space, then...
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
Getting a golf ball to skip...now that takes talent. Yeah, that's it. Talent...
...consider a spherical cow...
Mysterious Rock Movements
January 12, 2003
Lake Superior, Minnesota
Scientists and local authorities are struggling to explain the sudden rise in the level of lake Superior. After long investigation the rise was attributed to a big pile of mostly flat rocks that somehow made their way into a pile a few meters from the shore. There was also a smaller pile of not-so-flat rocks much closer to the shore.
Invstigators attempting to trace the people behind this strange event have only a few puzzling clues to guide them. The whole beach appears to bave been trampled by hundreds of thousands of people. The only clues to their presence is all those strange conical pieces of tin-foil with the base roughly the size of a human head. There were also a number of RIAA jackets nailed to tree stumps and impaled with darts.
Darl McBride, strangely showed up and shoved the following quote down our throats: "I'm not sure who is behind this, but I'm certain we own the intellectual property. We can't tell you quite what the property is or how it was violated, but please send us $699"
Assume a perfectly round stone on a flat earth...
Apparently it was a low budget operation. To do it right, they should have been shaped marble stones. Precision machined, anb with flatness measured on a granite surface plate, of course, to keep the people obsessed with making measurements happy.
A Good Intro to NetBS
I skip the Stones whenever they're in town.
I'm not paying $150 a ticket to see a zombie like Keith Richards.
and no one is going to believe it,(and I can't prove it) but I once managed 42 (answer to everything if you read douglas adams) on the River Mersey, mind you this was in the '70's and the river was more polluted then