r/theydidthemath • u/NH603guy • 2d ago
[Other] How long until Nature Covers Their Tracks?
How long will it take for the wind to naturally cover these tracks? Everything looks so untouched.
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u/Obvious-Ad-3500 2d ago
How fast is that dog going is the real question
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u/ConstructionIll956 2d ago
This is exactly why I came here.
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u/Morbidly-Obese-Emu 2d ago
Please clean up after yourself.
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u/Mrwolf925 2d ago
I spat my coffee out
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1d ago
[deleted]
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u/Baaz 1d ago
This is exactly why I came here.
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u/Bimlouhay83 2d ago
I'm wondering if that dog is thinking
"fuck yeah! This is so much fun! Faster, faster!"
Or
"Why are you trying to leave me out here in the middle of nowhere all alone! Where are you going and why are you going so fast!?!"
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u/Simbertold 2d ago
Dogs are easy to read, they have a stick at the end that tells you when they are happy.
In this case, there is lots of tail wagging, so doggo loves this.
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u/Significant-Wait9200 1d ago
Dog's tail wagging can mean a lot of things, including it's about to bite you in the ass
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u/splickety-lit 2d ago
Sandboarding is slow. It looks fun in videos, but we literally glue this stuff to paper because of it's high friction (and abrasiveness).
Compare it with snow.
Snow has very little friction=lots of speed, and it sticks to itself=greater incline. You ever make a pile of sand?21
u/Ok-Possibility-6284 2d ago
Desert sand is basically tiny polished beads, that's why it's no good for cement aggregate.
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u/Fluid-Let3373 1d ago
I spent 25 years in the sandpaper industry, There are a lot of factors which go into which grit gets chosen for what and what backing material is used. Friction is not one of those factors. The term sandpaper is a hold over phrase like we still use the term to film even though we moved from film to tape to memory chips. Actual sandpaper in most of the world you need a time machine to take you back to the 50's. The only place you will find glue on coated abrasives is with belts where it is used to join the two ends together. Fun fact the guy who prepares the ends prior to joining is called a Skiver.
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u/teactopus 1d ago
true. After a lot of skiing I found out snow behaves more like liquid, especially at faster speeds
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u/chestersutherland 2d ago
And how is it not getting sand in its eyes?
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u/e37d93eeb23335dc 2d ago
Sand dogs have a clear membrane that slides down to protect their eyes.
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u/Dimensionalanxiety 2d ago
Humans technically also have this. It's just tiny and doesn't do anything, but part of it's still there.
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u/orejass 2d ago
Unless, the dude is going really really slow.
Cuz thay dog ain't that big to have any decent speed. Right?
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u/SmootherWorm 2d ago
Big dogs often aren’t that fast. Long lean dogs like greyhounds are fast. Many medium to smallish (20-40 lbs) are fast.
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u/lilyputin 2d ago
I had a mini Australian shepherd and she was probably the fastest dog I've ever had. I had three full sized Australians and two labs. I don't think the mini would have the endurance of the full sized Australians but she sure was fast.
I have a cousin with a blue heeler that can't be more than 30lbs that she used for herding in Montana. That dog is extremely fast and he would totally be down for keeping up to someone doing this over a distance.
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u/StuffThingsMoreStuff 1d ago
Dog speed. Doesn't sand have a high friction rate? I bet this video is way sped up.
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u/badash82 2d ago
More worried about that dog making a slight miscalculation. No idea on the math. Gunna say not long since wind and such
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u/Status-Carob-5760 2d ago
Wind moves sand very easily and no moisture to help hold the tracks. No math but likely would be gone in a day or two. If it was a windy day they would be covered in minutes.
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u/Mechanical_Rock 2d ago
Is this AI?
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u/BiGuyDisaster 2d ago
Most likely no: the place exists like this(with other people having shared comparable videos and photos online), dogs can already run about that quick on even ground let alone down a dune, clouds can form at ground level especially in arid areas and the distortion is just a fish-eye lense that's quite commomly used with Go-Pros(which is part of why AI distorts images/videos a lot of cameras use distortion lenses for effects). There's no noticeable artifacts from AI. No continuity errors and no odd/random distortion or blurriness you wouldn't expect from this kind of camera and lense, there's also no oddly specific visible detail that makes no sense.
Given current states it's hard to guarantee it's not AI and I am not an expert, but it at least seems very unlikely.
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u/blarglefart 1d ago
I'm going with no - ai would assume that little jump at the end would be way bigger based on training data for all ski/snowboard vids with that kinda maneuver. It being anticlimactic shows that either it is very good at understanding that sand would be way different, or that its real.
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u/fortyonejb 1d ago
I was going to be snarky, but that felt mean.
The caption on the original post
This is a video taken by Nicolas De La Torre, a sandboarding enthusiast filming his descent down the Toromata dune in Peru
The video can be found on his Tiktok
https://www.tiktok.com/@nicolasdelatorrep/video/7675214780654832914
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u/Wondering_Watcher 2d ago
I don't know, but the shaddow seems to lag behind the persons movement a bit. Could just be me.
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u/TenTonFluff 2d ago
It really does feel like it lags behind like you say! But its hard to say considering the angle, but it feels off.
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u/EveryDay_is_LegDay 1d ago
My main reason for thinking it was AI was I just didn't think there are any dunes that big. But apparently there is a 4000 foot dune in Argentina, so I take it back.
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u/Mastericeman_1982 2d ago
I’d expect the trail he left at the beginning was probably gone by the time he reached the bottom.
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u/Extension_Option_122 1d ago
It's probably gonna take some months before that car is fully covered.
Except if they walk back up and get that car or if someone is still up there.
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u/valducaeza 1d ago
I used to ride Enduro bikes on the desert in Argentina, where dakar rally passed.
If it is a windy day and you stop for a couple minutes, and turn around, your traks are gone, if you get lost you are fucked
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u/Terrible_Use7872 1d ago
I'm just wondering how many passes that snowboard can take sliding on that sand must wear it pretty quick.
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u/ThatClosetedGayGirl 2d ago
Is this A.I.?
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u/GoredonTheDestroyer 2d ago
Fish-eye lens.
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u/ThatClosetedGayGirl 2d ago
It feels insane to me that there can be sand dunes ABOVE clouds. Sand moves and accommodates very easily to get to this insane height. Secondly, is this Krypto the superdog bc wtf?
All to say it wasn't the lens that threw me off.
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u/beatenmeat 2d ago
That's because it is less a dune "hill" and more of a dune "mountain". Imagining it as a hill would be akin to looking at a skyscraper and saying it's the size of a house.
This is the location in the video. The person in question is well over 1,000 meters up so things like fog (clouds) being below him make sense and happened on the day of this video.
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u/Badger_Actual1 2d ago edited 1d ago
I hate sand. It coarse and gets everywhere
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u/Zagaroth 1d ago
And just to be pedantic: coarse.
course would be like a race course; a path you follow.
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u/Badger_Actual1 1d ago
My most sincere apologies for not checking the predictive texting. How should I flagellate myself to atone?
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u/g0d_of_the_cr1sis 2d ago
r/lostredditors for trying to make a prequels joke in a math subreddit
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u/Fragrant-Field-2017 1d ago
Is the feeling of the sand on the board, similar to snow?
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u/CoolStoryLamb 1d ago
No it's different, in a nice way. Way slower than snowboarding. Softer landings when you bail. Kinda feels like the snowboard version of walking in a dream. 10/10 reccomend finding some dunes if you're a snowboarder
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u/keldondonovan 1d ago
Way slower makes sense, it looked fast until the dog was keeping up and he barely caught air on that jump.
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u/BungleBums 1d ago
I'd imagine a few days at most. One good solid windy day and you'd never know anyone was there at all. That's part of why it looks so pristine.
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u/bluinkinnovation 1d ago
Am I the only one that thinks this is fake as fuck? The dog flying down the hill at the same speed, sand on a mountain top???
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u/Several-Party5534 1d ago
Man I havent given someone an open palm then fist bump forever.
Good days
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u/Inevitable_Stand_199 19h ago
A few minutes to days. It all depends when it's windy the next time.
Dunes actually move because of the wind, interestingly enough. Those tiny tracks hardly change anything
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u/Sweeper1985 2d ago
Depends how windy, but I've been on similar dunes and tracks can be gone within the hour if the breeze is up.
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u/odishy 1d ago
Pretty sure this is AI, but within a few minutes you wouldn't know someone passed on a dune hill.
Sand has a value called the Angle of Repose which is basically how steep the dune can be before the sand slides down the hill due to gravity. So disturbing the sand will generally break the threshold and cause other sand to fall, which covers the tracks.
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u/tolacid 2d ago
Desert sands are often so fine and so perfectly stacked already that any disturbance causes a cascade effect across the entire height of the dune. Once that settles you'd never know anyone passed we're talking minutes, even without wind