-----Original Message-----
From: tap-l-owner@lists.ncsu.edu
[mailto:tap-l-owner@lists.ncsu.edu] On Behalf Of
Anthony Lapinski
Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2010 9:16 AM
To: phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu;
tap-l@lists.ncsu.edu
Subject: [tap-l] swimming
A curious/brilliant student asked me a random
question during my
electricity topic. She wanted to know if it would
be easier or harder to
swim in a pool with a more dense liquid (than
water). After class, we
reasoned that it would be harder to move, but your
hands could provide
more force on the liquid to propel you forward.
You would also not sink as
much. With a less dense liquid, it would be easier
to push the liquid
back, but the liquid's reaction force would also
be less. There would also
be more friction since you would sink more into
the water. We imagined
turning off gravity and trying to "swim" in a sea
of air and not moving
too far.
After our discussion, we both figured that it
would be easier to swim in a
more dense liquid, but we could not do an
experiment to prove this.