It turns out that heavier, potato-shaped stones are better for skimming across water than the thin, flat stones that everyone spends hours searching for. Boffins say it’s because larger rocks can give a “super-elastic response”: they don’t bounce as many times, but because they press into the water more deeply and for longer, the resulting force often causes a single “mega-bounce” that launches the object further. “There’s this almighty leap out of water,” a skimming scientist from Bristol University adds. “It changes the game.”
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high seas no skimming .