Swing Explorer

[James]

After looking a bit further, I have seen the force that moves the swinger. I don't know what it is called, but I know where it comes from.

When you take gravity and tension from the equation and pump your legs, the swinger spins or rotates. When tension is added to the equation, and pump the swinger rotates somewhat, and his/her center of mass moves slightly, almost like he/she is rolling around the swing. This means whatever force spins the swinger is the same force that initiates the movement. I don't know what force this is, so I will leave that up to someone else.

Glad to help!

[mesawille]

It has something to do with our center of gravity, which is roughly in our middle, give or take a little, when we move our legs forwards or backwards we change our center of balance, which causes a change in well everything, the swing tries adjusting to this, but gravity + us moving our legs back and forth doesn't let the swing keep us in the center.

[James]

Right!

The movement of the swinger's appendages offsets the center of gravity and moves the swing*, and gravity pulls the swing back to the ground (or as close as it can get to the ground.)

*The only thing that I don't get is what force this is.

Kudos to mesawille for getting it straight in your head and understanding (and it's also nice to have a partner in crime )

Waiting for assistance...

[larry]

Gravity moves as you swing so if a equal force was made it would not match up with gravity

[James]

But how does this start?

In order for gravity to have moved and pulled you back, you would have had to start moving somehow.

Basically, in order for pumping to move you, pumping would have had to move you.

[WiiSportsPro21]

I figured it out for why pumping works! When you start pumping, the gravity changes, forcing movement. The pumping itself seems like the unbalanced force.

[James]

Literally just tell us, we know you know Andy. Just spill the beans.

Jk it's fine.

[James]

It has something to do with our center of gravity, which is roughly in our middle, give or take a little, when we move our legs forwards or backwards we change our center of balance, which causes a change in well everything, the swing tries adjusting to this, but gravity + us moving our legs back and forth doesn't let the swing keep us in the center.

I realized something.

This would happen if you moved just your top or just your bottom, but they both move at the same time. Newton's third law: "when two objects interact, they apply forces to each other of equal magnitude and opposite direction."

SPOILER

SPOILER_SHOW

Yeah, I googled that.

The top and the bottom move simultaneously, and, also, even if they didn't, you cannot apply force to your center of mass while in a vacuum.

As said in Interstellar, you gotta leave something behind.

I don't know if it is a what or an if with the leaving behind. The center of mass including you and the swing can't move, can it? The force is not friction, the total inertia is a linear function, I assume that gravity it affecting the movement.

I don't know what it is. I think it has to do with spinning.

Think of moving from a coordinate plane (frictionless ice) to a polar plane (frictionless swing). There is a difference. Dunno.

[SmartBoi]

Something to do with the gravity, it doesn't work with no gravity.

[YuLuvOnyxox]

It's pretty simple. imagine the thing with the five balls on it not get rid of four. Lift the one ball and then drop it. gravity pulls it down but all of that kinetic energy makes it go back up. Now imagine you, on a swing your legs are like lifting that one ball up. But you pumping more and more is like you lifting the ball up a little higher and higher each time. hope that helps you understand