P2_8 Charybdis Vs. The Argonauts

Abstract

The Greek Hero Jason, while sailing on the Argo to fetch the Golden Fleece, encounters a sea creature which sucks in the ocean, creating a huge whirlpool. This paper finds the intital buoyancy force of the Argo and compares this to the centripetal force exerted on the Argo by the whirlpool, which were found to be 5690000 N and 101000 N respectively. We also calculated the pressure gradient throughout the radius of the whirlpool to be 12100 Pa, and its rotational velocity to be 0.61 rad s-1.