Walking on water is one of the premiere miracles in the bible. But summing up the miracle by using that stock phrase makes it just too easy for anyone to meet or exceed that deed.
If you have dared to walk on a floor that has that ubiquitous “caution wet floor” sign, congratulations. You too have walked on water.
Now you may argue that the film of water you walked on might not be complete. Fine. Just live in a country with below freezing weather in winter. All you have to do is walk on snow. Sure your foot sinks in but it doesn’t completely sink in all the way down to the grass or sidewalk. You too have walked on water.
Maybe that’s why we like figure skating and hockey. These people are fancifully moving on water and not just walking. So too with skiing, snowboarding, bobsledding, tobaganning etc.
But wait you say, what about water 10 feet deep and 50 feet across? Walk on that water. In summer when it is a pure liquid.
Well maybe I can’t. But if I could skip across that water, isn’t that even more fanciful? According to this article the important facts to know for stone skipping are spin, angle, speed and shape. If I were to put a human in a suit that was almost flat with rounded edges (the stones that skip most easily across water are this shape) and throw and spin them just right with a proper machine, the human in the suit should skip across the water. No word on whether the spin will make them puke thus nullifying the awe factor.
Indeed people now have a need to surpass walking on water in order to get a reaction. That is why George Lucas named his hero Luke Skywalker. And trust an ex gospel singer like Katy Perry to try to one up Jesus with the song Walking on Air. (If you haven’t heard it yet, I’m betting it will be a single in a month or two). But aren’t these artists just saying something that might not be real?
Indoor skydiving is the sport of floating on the updraft of a vertical wind tunnel and fan. It looks like it is very fun and safer with less to know than with actual skydiving. I’ve seen it on television so I’m sure visuals would be available somewhere on the internets.
But this is just floating. Sure you can lock and unlock positions to go up or down. But maybe here, walking on air is more fanciful.
Well how about skipping on air? We have this nice explanation and graphic for a potential spaceship to skip off Earth’s atmosphere upon reentry. The big players in space like the US, Russia or Europe haven’t tried this yet. So to India or China perhaps this would be a way for you to make a name for yourself in space travel.
Learn about the Hypersoar airplane that could travel from Chicago to Rome in 72 minutes, by (what else?) skipping off the atmosphere. It’s in the middle/end part of this article about stone skipping.
As you can see from all of this, walking on water now seems to be a little primitive.
Way, way too easy. 50ft across and 10ft deep? Try these inflatable walk-on-water shoes. I’ve seen these made of styrofoam, and called “Jesus boots”. Although Wikipedia says Jesus boots are merely slippers.
–Bob.
Never heard of Jesus boots or the other contraptions. Briefly I thought of attaching a canoe to each foot but vetoed this idea because I thought you’d end up slipping into the splits position, upsetting the whole apple cart. Guess it is way too easy.