Vogue digital cover star Sha’Carri Richardson is the fastest woman in the world, and now scientists (sort of) say she’d be able to run on water. At least, that’s the news according to a delightfully nerdy physics thought experiment.
In an article published in Physics World to celebrate the forthcoming Paris Olympics, fluid dynamics expert Nicole Sharp wondered if it would be physically possible for a human athlete to run on water. The answer is… yes… but also, not really. Per Physics World, there are a number of animals that can walk on water, perhaps most notably the basilisk lizard, also known as the “Jesus Christ lizard,” named after the other guy who could famously walk on water (allegedly).
Scientists have studied the basilisk lizard and other water-traversing creatures, like the Western grebe, for decades, as Sharp outlines in her article. Basically, those scientists came to the conclusion that in order for these animals to be able to run on water, they have to counteract their own weight by slapping the shit out of the water with their feet (and yes, slap is actually the word they use). One scientist found that grebes take up to 20 steps per second, whereas the average Olympic sprinter takes about five steps per second.
In a study published in the 1990s, Harvard researchers calculated that theoretically, a 176-pound human “with an average foot size and a world-class sprinter’s stride rate” would need to slap the water at a speed of 30 meters per second in order to support their own weight, which is physically impossible—at least on Earth. So in 2012, a group of researchers at the University of Milan set out to determine whether reduced gravity conditions could hypothetically enable humans to run on water. The study won the 2013 Ig Nobel, a satiric prize that rewards nerds who are so committed to the bit that they seek to answer questions with next to no practical application. (And the footage of said experiment, as Physics World puts it, is “spectacular.”)
Anyway, all of this is to say that decades of research have culminated in an answer to a question that no one has previously dared to ask: Could Sha’Carri Richardson run on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon? Because of Titan’s lighter gravity and Richardson’s speed, the answer is yes. Sharp theorized that the runner would have to “slap the surface” of Titan’s ethane lakes at 8.7 meters per second, and she’s already far outpaced that with her world-championship time of 9.3 meters per second.
And listen, if we have the funding to bring the military-industrial complex to outer space, someone out there has to have the cash to make Richardson the first woman to walk—er, slap—on the surface of a body of liquid. If there’s a chaotic good version of Elon Musk out there, please hear our plea.