Stone skipping is an activity every one of us would have tried. It involves throwing a stone with considerable force making the stone bounce or skip over the water surface; much depends on the shape of the stone and angle at which you throw the stone.

The stone skipping here was done near Nagarjuna sagar dam area of Andhra Pradesh.

There is something soothing about watching a stone skip over the calm water surface and I always visualized it as a leisurely activity, but much has changed, Stone skipping is now a sport and considerable research has also been done on stone skipping!

The world record according to the Guinness Book of Records is 51 skips, set by Russell Byars on July 19, 2007. The previous record was 40 skips, set by Kurt Steiner at the Pennsylvania Qualifying Stone Skipping Tournament on September 14, 2002.

Research undertaken by a team led by French physicist, Lydéric Bocquet, has discovered that an angle of about 20° between the stone and the water’s surface is optimal. Earlier research reported by Bocquet calculated that the world record of 38 rebounds set by Coleman-McGhee, unchallenged for many years, required a speed of 12 m/s (25 mph), with a rotation of 14 revolutions per second.