The Physics of . . . Skipping Stones

The night that Jerdone Coleman McGhee's life changed, he was standing on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea with a handful of rocks. For months he'd been strolling the slate beaches near Cadaqués, a Spanish town along the Costa Brava, hurling stones into the water in frustration over a failing relationship. As time went on, he started walking less and throwing more, the stones skipping farther and farther across the water. One evening, when the water was calm, one of his stones sailed out so far toward the setting sun that it seemed to go on forever. There was silence, then applause. When McGhee turned around, he saw that a crowd had gathered behind him. McGhee has since earned the Guinness World Record for stone skipping: 38 bounces, filmed on the Blanco River in Texas in 1992. And although he makes his living traveling from oil field to oil field ...