In a new article, science writer Stephen Ornes explains how pond skaters effortlessly skip across water leaving nothing but a small ripple in their wake.
As Ornes writes, our current understanding of the mechanisms adopted by the pond skater is down to the efforts of David Hu, who as a mathematics graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology spent four years studying their behaviour.
In a new article, science writer Stephen Ornes explains how pond skaters effortlessly skip across water leaving nothing but a small ripple in their wake.
Hu, along with his PhD supervisor John Bush, found that pond skaters use the middle of their three pairs of legs to “row” across the water. When a rowing boat’s oar slices the water, it creates swirling vortices just beneath the surface that twist away from the boat and move it forwards — the same vortices are created by tiny hairs that cover the pond skater’s legs. Read more
Loading ...