A little puzzled by all the effort put into this. Some wind moved some rocks - call out the physicists? Where is this research going?
That's it. They solved a problem because not knowing the answer bothered them. This is how most science works, it's just rarely this naked.
Why does the fact that people spent time figuring this out bother you so much?
> In 2006, Ralph Lorenz, a NASA scientist investigating weather conditions on other planets, took an interest in Death Valley. Lorenz was particularly keen on comparing the meteorological conditions of Death Valley to those near Ontario Lacus, a vast hydrocarbon lake on Titan, a moon of Saturn. But while investigating Death Valley, he became intrigued by the enigmatic sailing stones of Racetrack Playa.
--begin quote-- Then I had another thought: Physics disgusts me a little bit now, but I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to play with it. I used to do whatever I felt like doing - it didn't have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics, but whether it was interesting and amusing for me to play with. When I was in high school, I'd see water running out of a faucet growing narrower, and wonder if I could figure out what determines that curve. I found it was rather easy to do. I didn't have to do it; it wasn't important for the future of science; somebody else had already done it. That didn't make any difference. I'd invent things and play with things for my own entertainment. So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything, I've got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather enjoy, and just like I read the Arabian Nights for pleasure, I'm going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.
Within a week I was in the cafeteria and some guy, fooling around, throws a plate in the air. As the plate went up in the air I saw it wobble, and I noticed the red medallion of Cornell on the plate going around. It was pretty obvious to me that the medallion went around faster than the wobbling.
I had nothing to do, so I start to figure out the motion of the rotating plate. I discover that when the angle is very slight, the medallion rotates twice as fast as the wobble rate - two to one [Note: Feynman mis-remembers here---the factor of 2 is the other way]. It came out of a complicated equation! Then I thought, ``Is there some way I can see in a more fundamental way, by looking at the forces or the dynamics, why it's two to one?''
I don't remember how I did it, but I ultimately worked out what the motion of the mass particles is, and how all the accelerations balance to make it come out two to one.
I still remember going to Hans Bethe and saying, ``Hey, Hans! I noticed something interesting. Here the plate goes around so, and the reason it's two to one is ...'' and I showed him the accelerations.
He says, ``Feynman, that's pretty interesting, but what's the importance of it? Why are you doing it?''
``Hah!'' I say. ``There's no importance whatsoever. I'm just doing it for the fun of it.'' His reaction didn't discourage me; I had made up my mind I was going to enjoy physics and do whatever I liked.
I went on to work out equations of wobbles. Then I thought about how electron orbits start to move in relativity. Then there's the Dirac Equation in electrodynamics. And then quantum electrodynamics. And before I knew it (it was a very short time) I was ``playing'' - working, really - with the same old problem that I loved so much, that I had stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos: my thesis-type problems; all those old-fashioned, wonderful things.
It was effortless. It was easy to play with these things. It was like uncorking a bottle: Everything flowed out effortlessly. I almost tried to resist it! There was no importance to what I was doing, but ultimately there was. The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate. --end quote--
The OP research was just measuring exactly how much wind, how much water was required. Not really figuring out anything. And I get it - taking pictures of it is cool - Big rocks! Moving! But that's a youtube video, not something to spend govt research money on.
Your comment was also inaccurate.
> Some wind moved some rocks
Well, no, not quite. The wind moved the ice, and the ice moved the rocks. The wind wasn't enough to move the rocks.
Your other comments mention films. The film of water isn't enough for the rocks to move, even if there are algal films reducing friction.
And it contains a bizarre bit of anti-science sentiment
> Where is this research going?
IvyMike has already given you a good example of where this research might be useful. But, actually, FUCK USEFUL. Science and math do not need to have useful purpose. It is still good that people pursue them.
So ok, these guys are 'the reader' and do the legwork. Where can it go? Its not basic or fundamental research; its applicable only to 'rocks on a flat surface'; there aren't a whole lot of places where this will ever be reproduced.
That was what I was asking about: other than the novel circumstance what's to be gained? Got interpreted as anti-science.
It starts with something completely boring, like learning how peptidoglycan cross-links form. Then it's another long series of research trying to determine what cycloalkanes bind to a DD-transpeptidase enzyme. These two boring pieces of research are combined to create Penicillin.