In California’s Death Valley, large stones move across the desert floor, leaving long trails behind them. Despite many studies, no one has directly observed how these stones move. The mystery of Death Valley’s “sailing stones” has long stumped visitors to the national park and scientists alike. How do rocks at an area called Racetrack Playa, some larger than a microwave, move several yards across the desert floor, leaving tell-tale trails in the sand? Ralph Lorenz, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, may have cracked the case at his kitchen table. Lorenz employed a tried-and-true method for testing his nascent idea: the kitchen-table experiment. “I took…
