Derek Joe Tennant
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Jan 06, 2007
Science Puzzler Solved

I've heard there is no definitive answer to the following question:

Do you get less wet by running through the rain, or walking?

For years, I thought that you would be equally wet no matter your speed of transportation, because you would be occupying the same amount of space as you progressed through your journey and thus would collect the same amount of water. But yesterday, as I rode my bike to work through the rain, I realized this is wrong. In the same way that a slow moving storm has a better chance of causing flash floods because all of it's water is concetrated on the same land, a slow moving body is exposed to water at the same rate as a fast moving one, but for a longer period of time. Thus the runner would collect less water than the walker.

Of course, I'm right, right? 

Comments:

mike (Mike Macgirvin)
January 6, 2007 05:31
[*TOP MEMBER*] mike
In a perfect world, you're right. In practice, there is an additional factor to consider, especially since you mentioned a bicycle. That is the 'splash' factor, or how much water gets redistributed due to your motion through the space. When you're running, you're splashing more water that would otherwise have stayed on the ground, and some of this will probably end up on you - though it will tend mostly to splash to the side. The amount which gets deposited on you will vary largely depending on the depth of standing water, which is influenced by the porosity of the running surface. On a bike the splash factor can skew the results considerably, because the tires will pick up a good deal of water from the ground and hurl it at you. 

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