Does anyone else ever have the perception that each pool has one direction that is "faster" than the other? I swear that this is true, but can't really imagine the physics of why it would be so. In particular, it seems to me that going from the deep end to the shallow end almost always seems "faster" than going from the shallow end into the deep end. I speak specifically of 25 yard pools with one end about 12 feet deep and the other end about 3-4 feet deep since I have little experience with anything else. In all cases, the water jets are symmetrical in placement and seem to be pushing out the same amount of water (roughly). These are also indoor pools, so there are no wind effects and we aren't talking about when the water buffalo...err... water aerobics people are creating tsunami in the shallow end.
Or am I crazy? (No cheap shots on that one.)
-LBJ
This doesn't seem to totally make sense, but maybe it's a parallax thing. You know how closer things seem to be moving faster than things farther away? Like when you're driving a car the guard rail seems to whiz right by, but that barn in the distance hardly seems to move. Maybe your brain is confusing you like this with the bottom of the pool. When you start in the deep end and swim to the shallow end you think you're accelerating because the pool bottom is getting closer to you, and the opposite is true going the other way. Maybe this perceived acceleration is telling your brain that is the "faster" direction to swim.
This doesn't seem to totally make sense, but maybe it's a parallax thing. You know how closer things seem to be moving faster than things farther away? Like when you're driving a car the guard rail seems to whiz right by, but that barn in the distance hardly seems to move. Maybe your brain is confusing you like this with the bottom of the pool. When you start in the deep end and swim to the shallow end you think you're accelerating because the pool bottom is getting closer to you, and the opposite is true going the other way. Maybe this perceived acceleration is telling your brain that is the "faster" direction to swim.
