2023-05-25 19:00:00
Who has not experienced that uncomfortable situation in which you go out into the street and, to your surprise, it has suddenly started to rain heavily? Without an umbrella and with a long journey ahead on foot, you wonder if it would be better to walk or run to your destination. whatWhat will wet you less?
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The first impulse, in most cases, will be to run but,it is really the best option? Running you find yourself less time in the rain, but you constantly collide with the drops that come from the front, increasing the wet area. On the other hand, walking, you only get wet on the top of your head and the upper areas but, of course, you spend more time in the rain. What should you do then?
WALK OR RUN?
Well, the amount of rain that hits you in a given period of time it’s constant. That is, the water that falls on you in 1 minute in the rain will be the same, whether you run or walk. Let’s think of it as if the rain were a wall of water: it doesn’t matter if you jog or walk, to get from one point to another you will have to cross the wall, yes or yes. Another visual example can be a snowplow because, no matter how fast it goes, the amount of snow it dissipates from its path is always the same.
Therefore, that you get wet more or less it will not depend on your speed, but the time you spend in the rain and the length of the journey you travel. And how do you minimize this? Well, easy: choosing the shortest path and spending as little time as possible in the rain, that is: in a hurry. And it is that, although the amount of rain that you cross is the same, running you are under it for less time and, therefore, you can reach your destination sooner. Of course, be careful not to slip.
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OTHER FACTORS
This doubt, which appears at the most inopportune moments, has also arisen among researchers over the years. Thus, in 2012, the Italian engineer Franco Boccifrom the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering of the University of Brescia, published an article about it analyzing all the factors involved in this phenomenon.
The scientist adds that, depending on the droplet volume and of the angle at which they fall, it is possible that there is an optimum speed that the wetting effect is minimal. Now, it may not match the maximum speed at which we can go. For example, Bocci states that if the wind is blowing from behind, the optimal speed to get as little wet as possible is exactly the speed of the wind. If it is not possible to calculate it, the engineer recommends advancing, in any case, at the maximum possible speed.
IT’S WORTH IT?
“It’s not worth the effort.” These were the conclusions of the Italian physicist Alessandro De Angelis after the publication in 1987 of his article Is it really worth running in the rain? (¿It really pays to run in the rain?) In it he states that the difference between light jogging and sprinting is not worth the difference. In other words, the variation between how wet you will end up if you do a sprint the si trots smooth does not justify that race at top speed.
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In his calculations, he collects that, running at the same pace as an Olympic athlete does the 100-meter dash, a person only would get 10% less wet than doing a gentle jog. So it seems that the difference between running easy, sprinting, or running at optimal speed doesn’t really make that much of a difference. So now you know, for the next occasion, it is best to go for the safest option and take an umbrella.
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