Published in Physics World, 3 Dec 2009
Every year, teams of rowers from Oxford and Cambridge universities sweep along the Thames river at close to 15 miles per hour in one of the world’s most famous boat races. In each boat, the oars lie alternately left and right to generate – one might assume – an even push. But is this the most effective rig?
Possibly not, according to John Barrow, a theoretical physicist at Cambridge. While not a rower himself, Barrow has produced a formula that shows which rigs will naturally travel in a straight line, without a finite mechanical moment that causes them to wiggle left and right. For an eight-oared boat there are several possible zero-moment rigs – and the traditional Oxbridge “eight” isn’t one of them. […]
The rest of this article is available here.