The First Law:An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an external force. The object that is in motion will resist any changes to their motion state if it is not interfered with by a force. This law is also referred to as the Law of Inertia, which is a tendency to stay unaltered/unchanged and the resistance an object has to change it's state of motion. Inertia means that an object, such as a book, slid across a table, will stay in motion and until a force acts upon the book, it will continue to slide. The friction between the book and the table acts as a force to slow the book's motion down to a stop. The mass of the object determines the amount of inertia it has to keep the object in motion. Therefore, the larger the mass of an object, the bigger the inertia and vice versa.
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Newton's First Law of Motion and Bronte Campbell/ Olympic Swimming |
In swimming, Inertia is a fundamental law that impacts the way an individual swims, especially in the freestyle stroke. While swimming in freestyle, one way of keeping a swimmer's speed the same without slowing down using the law of inertia is through the use of a six beat kick, where there is less down stroke time with a 6 beat kick stroke and as long as the swimmer is moving forwards, there is no down time in frontal drag. To maintain constant speed whilst swimming, an athlete can reduce frontal drag as much as possible. This is done when they keep their head in line with their body and getting their head under the water at the same time as hand entry and keeping their whole body in a straight line. These techniques create a large impact on the athlete's speed when in a race.
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