Hugh Pickens writes "When American Swimmer Margaret Hoelzer goes for the gold tonight in the 200-meter backstroke, part of her success will be due to a new system developed by Tim Wei, a mechanical and aerospace engineer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, that uses fluid dynamics to study human movement allowing scientists and coaches to study how fast and hard a swimmer pushes the water as he moves through it. Wei uses a tracking technique called digital particle image velocimetry, commonly used to measure the flow of small particles around an airplane or small fish or crustaceans in water. Wei filtered compressed air in a scuba tank through a porous hose to create bubbles about a tenth of a millimeter in diameter. When an athlete swims through a sheet of bubbles that rises from the pool floor, a camera captures their flow around the swimmer's body and the images show the direction and speed of the bubbles, which Wei then translates into the swimmer's thrust using software that he wrote. "More force equals faster swimming," Wei says. Swim coach Sean Hutchison, says Wei's analysis helped swimmers he works with at King Aquatic Club in suburban Seattle and that the lessons he learned helped Olympian Margaret Hoelzer set a world record in the 200-meter backstroke in July. "Swimming has gotten to a point where you have two choices," Wei said. "You either bring state-of-the-art science into swimming and improve stroke mechanics, make them better, or you do drugs.""
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