40 comments

[ 6.1 ms ] story [ 85.6 ms ] thread
Sounds just like an old marketing campaign of mine that we did about transplanting human heads. Good times.
Except these guys are exercising, outdoors, getting wet, having fun, doing something no one has ever done before, and probably doing things that will get them laid easily.

How was that like you and your ironic crew and your email blast?

haha. that's awesome.

it was a pretty fun project for MTV. they launched a show about it called Head and Body... After a quick googling it seems the show never took off.

Okay, so is this a hoax or not?
What makes you think it is a hoax? It looks reasonable.
The bit about their water-repelling shoes and the philosophizing about the nature of the sport, those things have me on the fence.
Climbers, boulderers, mountain bikers, etc. all talk like this.
But no one gets an alpine start to run across water.
Of course not. And no one gets an alpine start to climb on 15-foot rocks in the high Sierra.

Oh wait ... except, they do!

People get up early to boulder because they like to climb while the weather is nice. Humidity and temperature affect friction on the rock. I can't imagine weather has that great of an effect in this situation.

I think they included the alpine start as a further joke at the ridiculousness of it all.

with enough speed and also proper tires, topgear demonstrated you can drive on water http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oeJjzdlTuI
snowmobiles do this all the time in the North, simply because it's quicker to skim than to go around:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYaF7wJ3dgM

If you run out of fuel it's a bit of a problem though, Lake Michigan & lake Huron have quite a few snowmobiles at the bottom...

The town I grew up in has annual snowmobile races on the lake in July.
Uhh...you're talking about 500+ horsepower motors pegged against their rev limiter...this is a human being running.
If you have to ask, yes it is a hoax.

Why do you think they could go 20 feet with no problems and in a heartbeat sink up to their neck? There's something 3-4 inches below the water they are walking on for the first 20 feet, then it's like a dock you step off.

They sink after running for 20 feet because with each step they are getting less return force from the surface of the water. At some point the next step will plunge through the surface and they will sink just as quickly as if their first step was not at a run and not with high and quick knee lifting.
Plain water is not a dilatant.

Skipping a stone or snowmobile is not the same forces in effect as stepping on water at less than 12mph with the tiny surface area of a human foot.

There is something very suspect with this whole video.

I don't know what a dilantant is, but in order for a human to maintain a high speed, he is pushing -- nay, driving -- his feet into the running surface. Water does not provide this level of resistance for something with a high psi such as a human foot.
It's a questions of surface tension of the water.

I'd have to think about the physics a bit, but if you fall wakeboarding, you can skip across the surface of the water for a good ways (done it). Considering your max speed is about 20 mph, and when you fall you immediately let go of the rope and decelerate rapidly, I would say a human body can skip across the water at roughly 15 mph.

It is entirely dependent on you though, if you let anything pierce the surface it's over. If you make sure your limbs stay up then you can skip a few times.

I'm still pretty sure this is a hoax but I bet you could do what they are doing if you could move feet fast enough (which may be impossible for a human, but a machine with feet that moved faster might be able to). Water has surface tension no matter what the speed, you just need to get out of the hole created faster than you fall through it.

Wasn't there a Mythbusters episode about this and it was busted?

Something about how ninjas in movies walk across water.

They tried to make their feet pontoons but it was hopeless.

Ah, here it is http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=5GWhOLorDtw

If we assume Ninjas can walk across water, we can also assume it's going to be something they learn in the years of training where they go from ordinary person to ninja.

Two ordinary people trying for a few hours wouldn't be enough to pronounce it an impossible feat, it would just say that ordinary people can't walk accross water without years of ninja training - and we know that bit already!

In a manner of speaking, they COULD walk across water... by cheating: they used lily pads. Big ones. It was like wearing rafts. After that, it was just a matter of learning to choose the right lily pads, being careful, and keeping your balance.

Nothing supernatural or anything like that, just learning to take advantage of what nature has on offer :)

i don't think surface tension is doing anything for something the size of a human, or a stone for that matter. if it was surface tension, why does it care that something is moving?

it probably has more todo with the water you are displacing having enough inertia that it can't get out of your way fast enough. it stays there long enough to deflect your path upward, keeping you up.

you sink when you pierce the surface because of the massive drag you introduce. it slows you down very quickly so you sink.

Still trying to figure out why this is on Hacker News. It's slightly funny, and a decently executed hoax, but come on, it's obviously just a walkway under the water.
I vote yes. Everyone in the video is wearing Hi-Tec branded gear, all the time. Hats, t-shirts, shoes, sweatshirts, jackets.

Everything except the wet suits and the vehicles, it looks like.

It's basically a commercial for the water repellent shoes. Of course it is, those shoes are SOOO water repellent, you can actually walk on water with them!
The figurine of Jesus hanging from the rear view mirror is a dead giveaway. It's a brilliant parody of extreme sports videos.

"When we discovered, oh my god...jesus...we're going one step, we're going two steps..."

"I think if you don't actually believe you're going to walk on that water, it's not going to happen for you"

Less of a hoax and more of a tongue in cheek joke...have you watched the other videos? They're kite surfers that "run" on water by taking their board off and splashing their feet against the water.

The video is them joking about being able to "walk on water" (they call it the "jesus style" in the other videos)

I now believe this video is likely a viral marketing attempt by Hi-Tec which has their logo appear a few subtle times in the video, on their caps and then when they stop to show the sneakers (trainers).
This reminds me of the last episode of Arrested Development.

"Why am I not sinking? OH GOD! WHY AM I NOT SINKING!"

"Hacker"News cracks me up sometimes.

Who cares if the video is a joke or not? It's awesome either way. Just appreciate it and get on with your day.

But, instead, there has to be analysis, and physics, and obviously there's a 20-foot submerged walkway that they built just for this joke video. Unless it was already there! (Ever tried running across something that's submerged under water for any length of time? It's slippery as fuck, which would make these guys incredible athletes still.)

Sheesh, get over yourselves already. This is pseudo-intellectualism at its worst. Nobody here knows these guys, probably nobody here has put any serious effort into trying anything like this, so nobody here has any applicable expertise to speak from. Just appreciate it as a nifty trick and move on.

It's obviously a viral campaign for Hi-Tec.
Those Europeans. Always up to some crazy but entertaining antics.
The whole time I was thinking that somehow they were going to say that their shoes 'go to 11'
Extremely clear plastic sheeting (tarp-like as opposed to a firm solid). Compare to videos of kids running across plastic pool covers and then mentally replace the pool cover with something perfectly clear that moves with the water.