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'"

Comments

Umm why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do a scientific analysis of something when you ignore the #1 variable: The Stone.

Stone initial conditions?

[mod_parent_down]

The article mentions varying the initial conditions of release angle, velocity, angular velocity, but never talks about using different shapes of stones (discs).

Any disc golfer or ultimate frisbee player can tell you that changing the shape or weight of your disc can very significantly affect its dynamics. It could be that they've only found the ideal release conditions for the particular disc they were testing with.

Re:Proving yet again....

[CodeMunch]

It isn't entirely uselsss. "skipping stones" was the tech behind the bouncing bombs in WWII that the Allies used to destroy German dams to deprive their industry of water. A couple weeks ago there was a great documentary about it on t.v. but i can't find a link - wuz on discovery or history channel i think - might have been one of those "dangerous jobs" shows. The bombs would bounce across the water & timed so that they would sink when they got up close to the dam and then detonate deep under water against the structure. Unfortunately, my words do not do the program justice.

Re:Dam Busting Bombs

[Styx]

Two objectives were destroyed, one damaged.

Re:mass versus skip number

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

There is a lot of military research on skipping bombs, see PBS