She could do a lot of things, but defying the laws of
physics was not among them.

Ranma should have paid better attention in science class.
What he did in this scene isn't against the laws of physics.

Sure it is.  Never mind about swimming against the force of water; she's
still subject to the force of gravity.  Look at it this way:  could
Ranma move her arms and legs fast enough through the air to lift herself
off the ground?  A bird she ain't.

Oh, it's possible. It's possible. Possible for a normal human, no; but
possible for a super-martial artist, yes.

Lemme put it to you THIS way: could Ranma move her arms and legs fast
enough through the _water_ to lift herself off the ground? Yep. Ordinary
swimmers do it all the time.

To assume that Ranma couldn't do it is to ignore a couple of very important
facts, the first of which is: Water is MUCH denser than air. That means
that scooping and kicking give a lot more impulse, so Ranma develops a lot
more thrust than what she would in the air. The denser water means that the
aerodynamic properties of a shape is magnified a hundred times in
hydrodynamics, so Ranma can use lift as thrust just as modern Olympic-class
swimmers do (only much more so).

 Taking the force of the fire hose
pushing her towards the ground, and adding that to the force of gravity,
would make it impossible for Ranma to stay aloft.

This ignores the second important fact: The force of the water stream from
the fire hose is ZERO. Why? Because both it and Ranma are in free-fall,
weightlessness, not moving relitive to each other. From inside the stream,
Ranma only sees a stagnant tube of water and the ground moving up to HER
(Equivelence Principle). So she only has to develop enough speed to move
away from the floor at the same rate as it's moving towards her.

Of course, Olympic-class swimmers can't swim that fast, but Ranma, being a
super-duper way-cool martial artist (and can swim like a porpoise), can.

So, I'm sorry Richard, but your answer is wrong.

                           ---------------------
##   ## ##   ## #######  ##   ##  AKA Tom Jefferys, Time Lord for Hire
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