nature.com — It's a question that has confused Newton himself: Do humans swim slower in syrup than in water? In this Nature worthy experiment, 16 volunteers swam in a regular pool and in the guar syrup. So which pool was faster? You might be surprised....
Feb 10, 2006 View in Crawl 4
btnheazy03Feb 10, 2006
Careful .. . the syrup used in the experiment is going to be repackaged and resold in third world countries, along with dirt pancakes.
hydroxyethylFeb 10, 2006
I have a serious problem with this experiment. Guar gum and water make a Non-Newtonian fluid. The viscosity of this mixture decreases the harder you push against it. On the other hand, water is Newtonian (ever try to run in waist deep water, the faster you go the harder it gets) and has a constant viscosity regardless of how hard you push (shear) it. If the swimmers were able to go ‘fast enough’ or shear the liquid mixture enough they would essentially be swimming in water. If they wanted a fair test they should have dilled the pool with silicon oil (not that I’d volunteer to do it).
avgbodyFeb 11, 2006
I got a question: If you were to put oil all over your body, then go swimming, would you go faster??????
cyberdactylFeb 11, 2006
"But look at a similiar question: What can you swim faster in, Air, or Water?"@ aggiesLOL yea right, let me push you off a 5 story building and see how well you swim in air. . .
mandabearskiFeb 23, 2006
it's pretty cool....i want them to come up with more experiments like that one, there are neat to read