Applying Newtons Laws:

Swimming
By: Jenny Ortega and Tracy Rompich

Newtons First Law: An object in motion will stay in motion.

An object at rest will stay at rest, unless acted upon by an
unbalanced force.
Because of the amount of water resistance,
the swimmer in motion will eventually stop
moving because they end up getting tired
and their amount of force will decrease.
When at rest, they will stay at rest unless
the force of the water causes them to move.
Different people of different masses will
need more inertia to move against the
water resistance in order to stay in motion.

Newtons Second Law: acceleration x mass = Force

If two swimmers have the same mass but have
different forces, the swimmer with the greater force
will have the greater acceleration. For example, if two
swimmers have a mass of 50kg but one force is 100N
and the other 75N, the acceleration will be 2m/s2 and
1.5m/s2. So the person with the greater force will have
a greater acceleration.
In terms of mass, two people with different masses
but the same amount of force would have different
acceleration. For example, with a force of 75N and
masses of 50kg and 75kg, the accelerations would be
1.5m/s2 and 1m/s2. The person with less mass would
have a greater acceleration in this case.

Newtons Third Law: For every action, there is an equal and

opposite reaction.
When swimming, the person pushes themselves
from the wall, which causes them to push back to
gain force to begin swimming. So their action,
pushing the wall, causes an equal and opposite
reaction, pushing them towards the other side as
well.

Then, when theyre swimming, they push the

water back, which again, pushes them towards the
opposite way, pushing them forward. For every
action, every push the swimmers make, they have
an equal and opposite reaction pushing themselves
forward/