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Maddenation
Swimming in Syrup
Apparently Isaac Newton and Christian Huygens debated whether a person could swim faster in water or in syrup, but it took until very recently for scientists to get around to actually performing an experiment to find out. (Their results were published in the AIChE Journal.) C’mon, science! What took you so long!?
In any case, I won’t ruin the surprise for you. Read the article in news@nature yourself.
Patrick • News • 09/26/04 • 6 comments
Comments
Dad • 09/26/04 • 12:45 PM:I am pleased that it was the Chemical Engineers Journel that published the result. I thought the answer might come out as it did. This question seems similar to our earlier debate about running in the rain. Would we be any better off if it were raining syrup?
Patrick • 09/28/04 • 1:06 AM:I’m still skeptical, I guess. Would it matter how viscous the syrup is? It would have to, wouldn’t it? Take the extreme example: road-repair tar. You tellin’ me you could swim in that stuff? And what about simple maple syrup instead of this specially formulated mixture.
And as for walking or running in the rain, I still think it’s better to run, again by the extreme example and interpolation method: If you walk so slow that you’re just barely not standing still, then it takes you an hour to get from your front door to your car in the driveway. You’re a heck of a lot wetter than you would have been had you run really fast to get there. And you’re already at your destination while your doppelganger walker dude is still inching across the driveway!
Dad • 09/28/04 • 12:06 PM:Clearly, you could “swim” much faster in road tar. That stuff is thick enough that you could probably run on top of it (which you would want to do very fast, to avoid sinking into this hot, gooey, death trap).
But seriously, you raise some good points, Patrick! As usual, more research is needed. The article did talk about a “threshold of size and speed” changing the result, and I assume this would be a function of viscosity. Also, what about a solution of corn starch, which is a non-newtonian fluid with a viscosity that is a function of shear rate? The faster you try to swim, the more it resists.
David • 09/28/04 • 1:42 PM:I hate when this site doesn’t work. I just wrote a long, insightful, funny comment and nothing happened. Dang.
Dan • 09/29/04 • 9:44 PM:Dad has complained about this too. One thing I always do is Select all (CTRL+A) then Copy (CTRL+C)…Just in case. Early, often. That way you have your text stored. It helps to have the CTRL (Command on a Mac) key where the ALT key is. I am also an avid CMD+S (save) when working in computer programs.
Patrick • 01/16/05 • 10:42 AM:Hey, a comment spammer just tried a new trick: he used a legitimate link in the body of his comment, but a porn-site link in his URL above. Anyway, before I get rid of him, I wanted to add the link to images from the Cassini-Huygens probe, which has some recent images from Saturn’s moon Titan. I thought we had discussed this here on Maddenation, but perhaps not. Anyway, this entry mentioned Huygens, so I put it here.
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