It seems like common sense the question of walking versus running in the rain. I feel like everyone assumes that running will get you less wet compared to walking to the same spot, but a few times in my life I have had people tell me that you will get more wet when you run. Which one is really true and why is that one true?
In a video by Henry Reich, the creator is of MinutePhysics (his videos have been featured on PBS and NBC), he explains why someone would get less wet when running to a spot compared to someone who walks to the same spot. He explains it using a parallelepiped, a 3D parallelogram. He says that because a parallelepiped’s volume does not depend on it’s slant, no matter your speed while moving horizontally the same amount of rain will land on top of you. The equation he came up with is your total wetness = wetness per second x amount of time spent in the rain + wetness per meter x meters traveled. He concludes by saying that in order to stay drier, you must get out of the rain as fast of possible – aka run!
Then I found out that MythBusters tested the same thing. They had a controlled experiment at their indoor course. They controlled the velocity at which the water fell, the wind, the distance they go, and the speed at which they walk/run. Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, the hosts of MythBusters, were the ones who went through the water. Each wore cotton overalls that are weigh before and after they go through the course. One at a time, they would walk, take the suit off to be weighed, and then repeat the same thing in a run. Each walk and run trial will be done twice, once with wind and once without. What they first found was that it is better to walk than run through the rain!
They actually went back and found out that because they used artificial rain in their original test, their results were actually a false positive. Their final conclusion was that it is in fact better to run in the rain than walk in the rain when you want to stay as dry as possible.
I really enjoyed looking up this topic because if the scientists that work for MythBusters can at first get it wrong, I do not have to feel so dumb for questioning it. This does also remind me of the Monty Hall problem because my intuition must be kind of lousy. The more I think about the Monty Hall problem, the more confused I get and the more I think about running versus walking through the rain, the more confused I get.
Luckily, I always have my umbrella in my backpack.
http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/running-in-the-rain-minimyth/
http://mythbustersresults.com/episode38
This is a interesting post. This is something that many people do not think about even though they do it all the time. For an example if it start pouring down raining, if you do not have an umbrella most people will run for shelter. Watching the video it makes a lot of sense. The guy made it a little bit two complicated with his equation when the simple answer for the conclusion would be the amount of wetness is determined by the amount of time you spend in the rain.