The Annals of Improbable Research handed out this year’s Ig Nobels on Thursday night at Harvard University. The annual awards, which celebrate the humorous and creative side of science, medicine and technology, may not carry the prestige of the Nobel Prizes being presented this month. But many of the scientists who win an Ig Nobel still consider it an honor......
The 2005 Ig Nobel for Chemistry:
An experiment at the University of Minnesota was designed to prove whether people can swim faster or slower in syrup.
To answer that age-old question, engineering professor Edward Cussler timed a group of swimmers both before and after he dumped 700 pounds of a starchy substance called “guar” into one of the university’s pools.
Surprisingly enough, his subjects swam just as fast in the syrupy water as they did in clean water.
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The above was excerpted from an AP story by Michael Kunzelman.
You can learn more about the Ig Nobel awards here: www.improb.com/.../ig-top.html
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Originally posted by knelson
It's pretty simply, really. Drag is resistance to forward motion.
Of course, the drag on your body parts that are moving backwards relative to your overall direction of movement is what makes you go forward. Thinking of these movements as "forward motion" might confuse some people.
Once you think of swimming as a balance of drag on body parts moving in the two directions the idea of more drag on both sides of the equation making no difference makes sense.
But for people who have been bombarded with messages about "anchoring" their hands in the water the idea of forward motion being generated by drag on parts of the body that are moving backward is counter intuitive...
;)
Originally posted by knelson
It's pretty simply, really. Drag is resistance to forward motion.
Of course, the drag on your body parts that are moving backwards relative to your overall direction of movement is what makes you go forward. Thinking of these movements as "forward motion" might confuse some people.
Once you think of swimming as a balance of drag on body parts moving in the two directions the idea of more drag on both sides of the equation making no difference makes sense.
But for people who have been bombarded with messages about "anchoring" their hands in the water the idea of forward motion being generated by drag on parts of the body that are moving backward is counter intuitive...
;)
