"You look at Michael and his arms are past his knees." "Michael has the longer torso and arms," Steve Lochte said. Steve Lochte, Ryan's former coach, has seen the results of Phelps' flow-field advantage and more with his own trained eyes. "That means, to be competitive (Lochte) has to be capable of producing a little more muscle power to keep up with the guy next to him who has slightly lower drag, and apparently Lochte can do that." The guy who's a little bit shorter swims in a flow field that's characterized by a lower Reynolds number and will have slightly higher drag, and there's nothing he can do about that. "In this case with swimmers, we're talking about muscle power. "To put it in a NASCAR context, if you have two cars that have the same aerodynamic drag, and you put them on the racetrack, the one that wins is the one that has the more powerful engine," Eastlake said. What Lochte must have, according to Eastlake, is more muscle to create more power. Phelps' body style gives him a slight advantage, but, as Eastlake pointed out, even a slight physics advantage can be the difference in the color of medal won. Lochte's dad, Steve, estimates Ryan's wingspan is somewhere in the low 70-inch range. According to Scientific American, most people have arm spans that correspond closely to their height. Phelps' wingspan is 4 inches longer than his height. Lochte's a pretty good size kid (6-foot-2), too.
"In the case of a swimmer in a swimming pool, a longer body means a higher Reynolds number," said Eastlake, an avid swimmer who follows the rivalry between the world's top swimmers. A higher Reynolds number equals less drag. Phelps' long body gives him a higher Reynolds number - a measurement used in fluid mechanics - that in swimming terms relates to drag. It airs on NBC-TV during prime time, according to NBC's Olympic website. Phelps and Lochte will open their 2012 Olympics competition with today's 400-meter individual medley. "The fundamental law of fluid flow gives Phelps a little bit of an advantage against almost everyone he swims against." "Ryan is pretty close to the perfect swimmer's body, but Phelps is from another world," Eastlake said. It centers around the fundamental law of fluid flow, said Charles Eastlake, professor emeritus of aerospace engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. It's long been said that Phelps, with his reported 79-inch wingspan, has the perfect swimmer's body.Īnd there's scientific evidence to back up that talk. The Spruce Creek High School product will have to overcome a law of physics. When Ryan Lochte dives into the London Aquatics Centre today to race Michael Phelps, he'll have to do more than swim fast if he wants to beat the 14-time Olympic gold medalist.
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