Louisiana Physicist Weighs in on Viral ‘Cop Slide’ Video

A Louisiana physicist has weighed in on the question everyone is asking after watching the now viral "Cop Slide" video; How in the world was he able to go so fast?

Viral 'Cop Slide' Video

A Boston police officer won the internet last week with a video that went viral of him going down a slide at a playground.

What's the big deal?

What enamored everyone who watched the video is the sheer speed and velocity the officer was able to build up while coming down the slide.

He was going so fast he eventually gets shot out of the slide and across the playground.

The officer had to be treated for a head injury and reportedly doing OK.

Still, the question remains...how was he able to go so fast?

Huffingtonpost.com spoke with Rhett Allain, Southern Louisiana University physics professor about how it could even be possible that someone could build up as much speed as the Boston police officer did.

Allain tells Huffingtonpost.com -

"Normal people, when they go down a slide, they’re fine, I would guess it has to be something about the clothes he’s wearing.

Friction depends on the two surfaces interacting, so if you have a metal slide and it’s in contact with skin or cotton clothes you have a certain coefficient of friction.

If you change the material, maybe to something stiff, it could make it a lot slipperier.”

So it's what the officer is wearing that made him amass Olympic bobsledding speed in such a short distance.

The material his uniform pants are made of provided little to no friction when it came into contact with the smooth metal slide.