{"id":652,"date":"2008-08-13T03:56:10","date_gmt":"2008-08-13T08:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/?p=652"},"modified":"2008-08-13T03:56:10","modified_gmt":"2008-08-13T08:56:10","slug":"an-individual-medley-of-physics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/archives\/652","title":{"rendered":"An Individual Medley of Physics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Phelps has more going for him than immense talent. In Quest for Speed, Olympic Swimmers Use Physics<\/a> over at Physics Buzz. There’s a brief discussion of the fluid mechanics topics involved in improving swim times, from analysis of swimmers’ motions to the pool design that reduces turbulent water to the new swimsuits.<\/p>\n

But what goes unmentioned is the underwater photo, showing the phenomenon known as Snell’s Window. Snell’s law tells us that light moving from one index to another will refract; light entering the pool on its way to the camera must bend toward the normal, meaning that the light entering the lens is compressed from a hemisphere into a cone, and the index of water (1.33) dictating the cone’s apex of 97.5\u00ba. Outside of that angle we have total internal reflection from the pool’s bottom; this light cannot escape the pool as it can’t refract and enter the air.<\/p>\n

Here’s another picture<\/a> showing Snell’s Window.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Phelps has more going for him than immense talent. In Quest for Speed, Olympic Swimmers Use Physics over at Physics Buzz. There’s a brief discussion of the fluid mechanics topics involved in improving swim times, from analysis of swimmers’ … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}