How fast could a mermaid swim?

Katherine Isobel Davies, Faeeza LORGAT

Abstract


This paper investigates the potential swimming speed of the popular mythical creature, the mermaid. In order to calculate this speed, the motion of swimming was considered and the assumption that the tail of the mermaid would swim and produce the same amount of power as a bottle-nose dolphin’s tail during swimming. Through the consideration of the forces of thrust, the power generated by one stroke and drag, the speed was calculated at 5.93 ms-1.


Keywords


Mythology; Biology; Physics; Mechanics; Biomechanics; Fluid dynamics; Drag; Mermaid

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References


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