If you've ever skipped 15 or six times, you might find yourself taking a little more seriously, See if you can get 789 consecutive skips turns out some people take stone skipping very seriously and actually compete to see who can skip the most or who can skip the farthest the current world record for most consecutive skips is probably higher than you think.

Try counting the skips in this footage of the world record, just don't blink, did you catch it?

That was 88 skips.

Here's the amazing thing.

Models actually project the limit could be a lot higher than that.

Today, we're gonna explore what that limit might be and why approaching or even exceeding.

It could be almost impossible to find out what it takes.

I skipped stones with the world record holder.

What was that?

7, 8, you know, the odd thing is I never count.

Are you serious?

You never count.

I don't talk fluid dynamics with a physicist, it hits the water and this back end sort of creates a wave and so the stone tends to rise up over that wave that it creates and that's what allows it to get a lift force that gets it back in the air again before the next impact and over and over again and brought both of them together, gorgeous.

To see if we can figure out how world class stone skipper gets so many touches on the water and with the limit might actually be.

So we're here today with kurt steiner, he's the world record holder in stone skipping specifically, most consecutive skips on the water.

And how many skips was that?

That's so remarkable.

I can't even like I'm not a really talented stone skipper but you know if I find myself at a lake with some stones I will do some skipping.

I think the most I've ever done is like 13 or 14 and like that makes me really, really happy and proud.

So 88 is like how it is, what makes you happy?

That counts more.

But I think we can get that number up a bit.

We flew steiner and a couple boxes of rocks to Utah where he gave me some lessons on extreme stone skipping, Steiner makes it look easy, but a good skip is more than just how hard you throw a stone or which angle, in fact it all starts with the stone itself.

Okay, that was closer to like 15, 16, 15, 15.

Alright, so the most I've ever skipped before, this is around 14 15.

And here on my second throw, I hit around 1415, which tells me there's a lot to do with the rock you're using Steiner stones made a huge difference.

The worst rock in this box is better than the nicest rock I've ever skipped.

Steiner, like a lot of top skippers is very particular about his stones.

He collects his from lake Erie a few hours from his home in pennsylvania.

A lot of questions to what kind of rock is best.

The general category I use is just how many sizes it.

Steiner isn't just an expert stone skipper, he's an expert stone picker to this one is pretty similar to the one I would have set the record with.

He uses different shapes for different skips and different conditions.

People like triangles.

I used to like triangles, but um they just chew up the water too much.

You're always kind of weighing how much irregularity is in my rock against how hard am I throwing it against?

What water am I throwing it onto?

Signer also showed me how to hold the stone for maximum skipping.

The first thing you ever want to do is determine which side is going to be down right and you generally want to go with the flatter or slightly rounded if it's cupped or jagged.

Put that up, especially you want to look at the outer edge because the stone almost never touches except around half inch around the edge.

But as I soon found out there's a lot more to skipping than just picking a good stone.

Steiner uses a variety of grips and stance is for things like distance power and number of skips.

That's a high spin throw and then there's one here where a little closer to the water that's a good way to get a lot of power in real close.

He's got a classic low skimming toss and an unusual overhand swing, but basically you're just kind of trying to swap the water as hard as you can with the rock as flat as possible.

He showed me how to get a little more whip on my skip lesson.

Number one throw hard, you've got a lot more strength than you're using, he suggested trailing my hand.

Yeah.

And don't start pivoting your waist around your shoulder, around until that left leg is a good foot out in front of you.

If you drag your arm right, you see what I mean?

They're almost opening up into the throw, you know, tension up across here and then essentially your hand is catching back up to the rest of your body and will snap out better.

Alright, let's give that a shot.

Okay.

It's not actually looked a little better to me.

So now the third part is where it comes together here.

That's where you've got to hit your target.

Next kurt had me aim for a first touch closer to the shore line.

Did you notice how when you threw the rock, the longer stays in the air, the more it will roll over on its side.

That is always happening.

You can minimize that obviously by lessening the time in the air, which is one reason you want to hit close.

So we're gonna be focusing on three things on this throw based on current feedback one, I'm gonna be delaying the start of my throw so I can utilize more of my biomechanics to I'm gonna try to throw it hard And three I'm going to try to make contact with the water really close to myself.

There it is.

So that looked like high teens to me, immediate immediate improvement.

And that was your first try.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's so cool.

Every throw is a complete new puzzle.

So how is it that someone like Steiner can skip stones so many times to find out.

We asked Tad trusted who runs the splash lab at Utah State University in Logan.

Yeah, splash lab.

Welcome.

Thanks.

You've got a lot of really cool stuff in here.

Yeah, it looks like junk but we're using all of it.

Yes, it's a real lab and the work they do there is amazing.

And then this tank here where I shot bullets into it for my Thesis, my PhD thesis shot bullets into this.

Yeah, absolutely.

They were modified 22 bullets.

Is that what that hole is?

Yeah, is where we missed.

But that that's a misfire.

But yeah to study stone skipping trusted and his team recorded steiner hurling stones into a tank at thousands of frames per second to figure out how many skips are possible.

You have to first understand just how a skip works.

Here's what happens.

So you have the stone, it's in your hand and you throw it and as you do that you release it off of your fingers and that causes it to have some spin.

So the spin is really important, we call it gyroscopic stabilization, it essentially holds the attack angle of the of the rock with respect to say, the surface of the water.

So then when you hit the water, it deforms the water and pushes a wave out in front of it.

But the velocity of the stone is much faster than the wave that it creates, and so it ends up rising up on that wave that it created.

And this causes a little lift force.

The rock is able to go back into the air and then back down.

And so this happens over and over and over again for a good rock skip.

Right?

And that gyroscopic stabilization is what keeps that attack angle correct.

And friction is really the only other thing that's like reducing your ability to keep going.

The splash lab isn't the only one studying stone skipping.

A group of French scientists first figured out a model for ideal skipping in 2004.

These researchers in France found out that the optimal Angle for a disc to skip on the water surface is about 20° for both the attack angle and also that velocity vector that coupled with um you know how, how fast it is thrown as well as how much gyroscopic stabilization it has sort of set up the problem to find out what the maximum number of skips you can get or the number of skips you'll get based on what that spin rate is and what that velocity is and that impact angle.

Now you might think that studying stone skipping is a bit frivolous but trust it says there are practical applications.

Yeah, definitely.

So spacecraft that was proposed that would bounce off the atmosphere as it kind of came back towards Earth and use that to keep itself out, you know, if you want to land on the moon of titan, you may wanna, you may want to come in for a soft landing um knowing how skipping works might be a great way to do that to figure out how Steiner skipped so many times.

Trust God in his lab also went into the field to gather data on his arm speed and the rotation of the stones.

Alright, I think that was it.

Dude Steiner's maximum speed is around 50 mph.

His world record skip was calculated at 43 mph, but he also has years of experience.

Even his doug throws put my best efforts to shame, but could someone best his record, I've seen one or two people who have a technique that could maybe beat that, but it's almost impossible.

Now you might remember from our previous episode on the fastball that pictures are about maxed out on speed at just over 100 MPH.

Trust can apply that metric to stone skipping and came up with some amazing calculations, A really safe place on our chart puts you around 93 mile an hour throw because these are a little heavier than a than a baseball.

And um, and they're a little, they have a bigger radius which makes their moment of inertia larger.

So you need a little more energy in that side of it.

So 93 mph is about where you're topping out, you're gonna have about 2800-3000 rpm.

And if you can get there, that's close to 164 jewels, you're gonna probably get close to 300, skips.

350.

Yeah.

Under the current idea.

Yeah.

Is that even possible 300 already just seems ridiculous.

Right?

I don't even know who could count that, like I couldn't count 10 today.

Steiner thinks the limit is probably closer to 200.

That's what the number says.

I'd like to go test it.

Trust it.

And other scientists have modeled their projections using a perfectly round disc.

But as Steiner showed me there are no uniform stones because Mother Nature never sees fit to make two of the same thing.

I have to get on her about that.

So skipping a stone might seem like a simple thing, but it's actually this beautifully complex mix of skill, athleticism and fascinating physics.

It's such a miracle to me, what's going on?

You know, it's just just, we're dancing, Water and stone and air.

So will we ever see 300 consecutive skips, or 350?

That's a good question.

It'll probably take someone with a major league caliber arm and kurt steiner's devotion.

But what we're seeing these days from the world's top skippers is already almost impossible.

Mhm.