We’ve all been there – caught outside without an umbrella as the sky opens up. Whether it’s a light drizzle or a heavy downpour, instinct tells us that running will minimise how wet we get. But is that really true? Let’s take a scientific look at this common dilemma.
You’re out and about, and it starts to rain – and naturally you’ve forgotten your umbrella. Instinctively, you lean forward and quicken your pace. We all tend to believe that moving faster means we’ll spend less time getting wet, even if it means getting hit with more rain as we move forward.
But is this instinct actually correct? Can we build a simple model to find out if speeding up really reduces how wet we’ll get? More specifically, does the amount of water that hits you depend on your speed? And is there an ideal speed that minimises the total water you encounter on your way from point A to point B?
There was a game called Mind Trap that asked about this. It said the right answer was that running didn’t get you less wet, and that it made no difference how fast you walk. The explanation said to imagine the rain was stationary in the air. Then as you walk at any speed you’d walk into the same number of rain drops. Such a bonkers stupid explanation.
Look from the reference frame of the raindrops. Imagine that instead of falling downwards they are stationary in space and you are moving upwards through them. You cross more en route to your destination if you spend longer.
Running makes you less wet from the rain, but risks making you more wet when you slip over and fall in a big puddle and bust your wrist.
Didn’t mythbusters do this years ago?
Yes, they made a huge mess out of it and managed to “measure” the complete opposite of reality.
And yeah, it was based on a paper published on a joke journal at Apr. 1st. The first paragraph of the paper postulates people occupy no volume. (It’s a fun paper, differently from that TV episode.)
ρ.Sh.a.T.
I can’t help out think P Shat was intentional…
TL, DR: To sum it all up: it’s a good idea to lean forward and move quickly when you’re caught in the rain. But careful: leaning forward increases Sh. To really stay drier, you’ll need to increase your speed enough to compensate for this.
