A few days ago, I believe it was on the pop news show EXTRA,
they had a short clip of some fellow in the Phillipines or
Taiwan or China, someplace far off.
This guy had rolled out a long sheet of yellow plastic sheet
on the water of either a lake or a bay in the ocean, it
wasn't made clear in the video.
I'd guess the sheet was 200 feet or so and was about 3 feet
wide. The plastic float on the surface of the water and
looked kind of like the kids toy called the 'slip and
slide'.
There were many people on the shore watching this
demonstration. The guy took off running across the water on
this plastic strip. It was quite fascinating as he managed
to move fast enough that the plastic dispersed his weight
and basically caused him to sink slower, but slow enough
that he could lift his foot and move forward with each
bound.
He ran all the way to a boat or barge, jumped up on it, then
turned around and ran right back to shore, never sinking
into the water.
Kind of like a macro version of a 'water strider' bug as
pictured at;
http://www.photovault.com/Link/OrdersEntomologyInsects/HemipteraBugs/OEHVolume01/OEHV01P09_02.jpg
-------------------
Water striders & pond skaters;
http://www.insect-world.com/main/gerromorpha.html
Pond Skaters, Water Striders, Water Measurers, Water
Crickets and their kin are all relatively commonly seen
insects, they live on the surface film of water, buoyed up
by a combination of their water repellent hairs and the
surface tension of the water.
--------------------
Scientific American on the subject;
http://www.sciam.com/askexpert/biology/biology27/biology27.html
Humans cannot, under normal circumstances, either walk on
water or climb up smooth vertical surfaces. But many
animals, such as small lizards, snails, slugs and
arthropods, easily clamber up walls or hang from the
undersides of smooth leaves. A few, including fishing
spiders and water striders, habitually walk on the surface
of water.
--------------------
I've always thought that if gravity could be reduced
sufficiently in mass we could easily walk, skate or glide
across water. Of course, choppy, high waves could be a
problem but the idea has always intruged me.
Talk about a neat way to prove that your gravity control or
reduction machine works...<g>..just walk across any water
surface without any preparation and then when you hit land,
jump about 50 feet into the air...that would be a hard to
deny demonstration.
-- Jerry Wayne Decker - jdecker@keelynet.com http://www.keelynet.com from an Art to a Science Voice : (214)324-8741 - FAX : (214)324-3501 KeelyNet - PO BOX 870716 Mesquite - Republic of Texas - 75187------------------------------------------------------------- To leave this list, email <listserver@keelynet.com> with the body text: leave Interact list archives and on line subscription forms are at http://keelynet.com/interact/ -------------------------------------------------------------
