So why do we fill swimming pools with just plain water? The viscosity is the same throughout the pool and this leads to pool rage as more experienced swimmers try and overtake the slower ones.

Why not have have different viscosity lanes depending on the kind of workout required. My proposed grading would be.

1) Vodka 2) Water 3) Glycerin 4) Honey/Syrup 5) Ball bearings
-- martbert, May 06 2015

Viscous_20Brutality [calum, May 06 2015]

honey_20workout [calum, May 06 2015]

https://xkcd.com/1092/ [pertinax, May 07 2015]

Mythbusters swimming in syrup https://www.youtube...watch?v=cG8AuhDvh4o
[bs0u0155, May 07 2015]

100m Hg 100m_20Hg
Proposed contents of lane 6. [Wrongfellow, May 15 2015]

Feet, at least, are impervious. https://thechronicl...ption-through-skin/
[Voice, May 17 2015]

Ha, I love this. Brilliant. I would do Honey/Syrup absolutely. I'd also lick my fingers when done.
-- blissmiss, May 06 2015


Bonus: you'd be able to tell when and where people peed in the pool.
-- RayfordSteele, May 06 2015


Vodka has roughly the same viscosity as water, at reasonable temperatures.

However, between 10 and 40°C, the viscosity of water varies about 2-fold.

I wonder if swimming records take into account the water temperature? Even a 1°C difference changes the viscosity by a percent or two.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 06 2015


//a 1°C difference changes the viscosity by a percent or two//

There was a Mythbusters episode where they tested the effect of swimming through different viscosities. They discovered that they were both such inconsistent swimmers that they were going to make an incredibly noisy data set. So they got in an athlete-level swimmer. Turns out you can keep increasing the viscosity (with guar I think) and the speeds remain similar. Relevant <link>
-- bs0u0155, May 07 2015


That sort of makes sense - higher viscosity gives more resistance, but also more result from your power strokes.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 07 2015


now, a carefully tuned non-Newtonian fluid however, should solidify around the fast-moving arm, and allow the body to slide through
-- bs0u0155, May 07 2015


^ neat.
-- FlyingToaster, May 07 2015


Or layers; reach down and grab the viscous layer to pull yourself along.
-- pocmloc, May 08 2015


Jesus walked on water, but Chuck Norris can swim through land.
-- RayfordSteele, May 08 2015


I keep clicking on this thinking it's going to be a morphing billiards table.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, May 14 2015


[2 fries] Mine was a dynamic walled swimming pool.

aside: Isn't there a problem that ball bearings won't float you? Even if you are a lighter density, there are no inter-ball forces, only gravity. Maybe magnetic ball bearings could be used.
-- wjt, May 15 2015


Wouldn't swimming in vodka kill you, assuming you were not Russian?
-- Eugene, May 15 2015


//Wouldn't swimming in vodka kill you

perhaps, but it would tend to make the olympics a bit more fraternal, as all the swimmers get out at the other end saying "yourr my bestesh ever pal, you are <hic>" in their native language.
-- not_morrison_rm, May 17 2015


// Isn't there a problem that ball bearings won't float you? //

Buoyancy still exists in solids. It's one of the forces that causes granular convection.

'Buoyancy' is just a fancy name for 'gravity attracts denser things more strongly per unit volume.'

Buoyancy in solids does depend on another source of motion to allow it to occur, though.

Buoyancy.
-- notexactly, May 31 2015



random, halfbakery