Any scientists about? Swimming in deuterium?

[TeacupTurtle]

Seeing the storage tanks at a nuclear facility (swimming pools of 'heavy' water - deuterium) got me thinking.. What if you got in to swim? Would you float higher in the water if the water's more dense? Would it feel harder to swim? What would happen if you drank a bit? Then that got me thinking about swimming in other liquids.. What would it be like to swim in liquid methane? (pretending that we could). Or mercury? Any answers greatly appreciated!

Heavy water is about twice as dense as water, so you’d float a bit higher. I imagine it would feel harder to swim, but I have no idea what would happen if you drank some! I expect you’d be okay, because you couldn’t drink enough to cause issues.

In liquid methane you’d be bloody cold (and die) and sink like a stone. With mercury, aside from being horrible poisoned, you’d just sit right on top. I’ve seen a bowling ball float on mercury!

Sorry, heavy water is about 1.1 times the density of ordinary water, not twice. You would be unlikely to notice much difference in trying to swim through it.

Sorry again, should have said it was an iron ball floating in mercury. I have brain fog today!

Seawater is more dense than heavy water or normal water so it is slightly noticeable. I scuba dive and we need more lead weight to sink in sea water than fresh water so I would imagine this would also apply to heavy water.

Deuterium is actually heavy hydrogen not heavy water btw.

Well this is why ships have various load lines (the maximum a ship can sink in the water whilst remaining stable) when they sail from freshwater to brackish and sea water they will rise in the water the denser the water becomes. sea water has a density of 1.25.

Also this is why oil tankers can have a shorter freeboard (the part of the ship sticking out of the water) and look low in the water because they carry oil which has density less than 1 (why it floats after a spill) it helps tankers stay afloat. Bulk carriers that carry iron ore will not be allowed to sink in the water as much and will have a greater freeboard.