Fig. 3.

Mean rotational frequency $\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}/2\pi$ vs. swimming speed $\overline{v}$ for dialyzed PVP and Ficoll solutions at molecular weights as indicated (there are at least two datasets per each PVP and one dataset for each Ficoll). The line is a linear fit to all data (except PVP360k), giving $R_1=9.6\pm 0.1\hspace{0.17em}\mu {\mathrm{m}}^{-1}$ in Eq. 6. (Inset) Probability distribution of $R_1$ for all datasets except PVP360k. The diamonds are for PVP360k averaged over two datasets with the errors bars being SDs. The stars linked by the full curve are the predicted $\mathrm{\Omega }\left(v\right)$ for PVP360k, according to a model in which the body experiences the full low-shear viscosity of the polymer solution, and the flagella experiences the viscosity of pure buffer, ${\eta }_s$.