ICTS

Fish and other aquatic animals swim in myriad ways. From the fast swimming shark where mostly just the tail wags, to the eel where a wave moves down its whole body as it swims forward, to the sting ray that seems to ‘fly’ through water. Are fish more efficient swimmers than man-made underwater vehicles like submarines? Are their wakes ‘quieter’? Can we indeed define an efficiency for a self-propelling body moving at constant speed? Many fish bodies and their fins and tails are highly flexible. Is flexibility important? How much flexibility is good? Do skins of aquatic animals have special textures that reduce drag? In this talk I will discuss some of these questions, answers to which are mostly unknown.