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Walking on water- Jesus's trademark miracle and an expression that's come to mean to literally
perform a miracle.
Yet while the Son of God had divine authority over nature, the rest of us aren't quite so
lucky and may have to cheat a bit to achieve the same feat.
But first- why can't we walk on water in the first place?
After all there's plenty of insects and even some lizards that manage to do it.
Well that's going to have a lot to do with simple gravity- the force of the earth pulling
down on us overcomes the surface tension of water, or the force keeping water molecules
together.
Smaller animals can spread their mass out sufficiently that surface tension is able
to resist the downward pull of gravity on the animal's body.
So how do we overcome this basic flaw in our biology and become bona fide water walkers?
Well one way would be to run really fast, same as the basilisk lizard which runs so
fast its body never has a chance to break the surface tension of the water it sprints
across.
For a human to achieve this though they'd have to run at 67 miles per hour- not likely
for most people.
So what's some alternative options?
The first option is probably the most obvious.
In 1988 Remy Bricka set off from the Canary Islands with a pair of 14 foot fiberglass
pontoons lashed to his feet.
Towing a raft outfitted with a sleeping compartment and supplies, Bricka's goal was to walk across
the Atlantic ocean and reach the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe.
Unfortunately Bricka's preparations were rather lackluster, and after two of his three water
desalinators failed he began to supplement his hydration with a daily quart of seawater-
a desperate and very bad move on his behalf.
Two months after leaving the Canary Islands, a Japanese fishing boat rescued him near the
Caribbean island of Trinidad.
Though he was discovered emaciated and hallucinating, claiming that he saw trolls attack his legs,
and his weight had gone from 160 pounds to 110, Bricka's 3,502 mile hike over the open
ocean was nevertheless an impressive feat.
Not one to be easily deterred, Bricka attempted once more to hike across the ocean, and in
April of 2000 he left Los Angeles with a plan to walk across the Pacific and arrive in Sydney
just in time for the Summer Olympics.
This time carrying a raft behind him loaded down with 11 pounds of sauerkraut, freeze-dried
meals, an Iridium satellite phone, and a GPS unit, Bricka wasn't taking any chances.
Yet while en route Bricka ran out of food and his Iridium satellite phone lost service-
probably the one thing a satellite phone is literally never supposed to do.
Clearly having earned the ire of Poseidon for daring to walk across the ocean, a cyclone
with 50 foot swells then destroyed his raft.
Left only with a handheld messaging device, Bricka sent an email to his wife in Paris
that read: Come pick me up now or I'll have to hitchhike.
Ten days later an American tuna boat rescued Bricka 500 miles south of Hawaii- he might
not have reached Australia but he had still covered an incredible 4,847 miles of open
ocean in 153 days.
Another option to walk on water would be to use a non-Newtonian fluid, or a substance
who's surface acts as a solid for very brief amounts of time.
Basically it's a very thick liquid that can be walked across without you sinking- if you
move quickly enough.
As your foot impacts the liquid, it compresses and thickens the material preventing any breaking
or shearing, and thus keeping you from sinking.
The easiest non-Newtonian fluid to make at home is a substance called “oobleck”,
named after the Dr. Seuss book, Bartholomew and the Oobleck.
You'll need to mix 1 part water and 1.5 parts cornstarch, while mixing thoroughly.
This results in a thick, opaque slime which won't fool anyone into thinking you're walking
on water, but with so much water content you will in fact technically be replicating Jesus's
most famous miracle.
Another way to walk on water will require some serious tinkering with the physics of
the water you're trying to actually walk on.
Large ships float because as they displace large amounts of water, the water pushes back
on the ship, keeping it afloat.
You can use this same trick by somehow increasing the density of the water you're trying to
walk on, which will increase the weight of the displaced volume of water as you walk
across it which exerts more force against you and keeps you from sinking.
One way to increase water's density is to increase its salinity- salt water is more
dense than fresh water and therefore its easier to float in the ocean than in a lake.
If you've ever seen footage from the Dead Sea, one of the world's saltiest bodies of
water, you can see just how easily people float due to the concentration of salt.
Density also increases with a decrease in temperature, so turn the thermostat down and
it'll be easier to walk across your very salty, very cold water.
Letting it turn to ice would be cheating, although technically it would still be walking
on water.
Lastly, you can increase the amount of water displaced by increasing the volume of your
feet- get big, freaky frog feet and you'll increase how much water you're displacing
which will increase the force that keeps you from sinking.
Sadly, it seems that without absolutely breaking the physics of water itself, you're not going
to walk on water anytime soon unless you do it on big fiberglass pontoons.
But the future is a strange place, and who knows what weird and wonderful technologies
await us that might one day make Jesus's most iconic miracle something any one of us can
easily do.
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Would you ever try to hike across the ocean?
Also if you found this video interesting, make sure you check out our other video What
if you only drank soda and nothing else!