"I thought the bumble bee thing had been debunked."
Yes, it has.
The original event was something like this: Two guys were at a formal dinner; one of them was a prof (or similar) in aerodynamics. Somehow the conversation turned to how the heck a bumble bee generates enough lift. The prof said, "well let's see now...", reached for a napkin, scribbled out some standard engineer's rule of thumb formulae, inserted some rough top-of-the-head guesses for weight, wingspan, etc, then did the math... Laughed and said "well according to this, it's impossible for the bee to fly!". Having by then covered almost the entire napkin (and possibly consumed nearly the entire bottle of wine), he didn't bother continuing at that point. I've no idea if he ever made a more serious attempt at analysis, but presumably via numerous after-dinner retellings the story has transformed into the myth that "according to the laws of classical aerodynamics, it's impossible for a bumble bee to fly!"
The correct conclusion would have been: "if you want to understand how a bumble bee files, be sure to specify extra-large napkins." =:o}
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2007-12-13 11:20 pm (UTC)Yes, it has.
The original event was something like this: Two guys were at a formal dinner; one of them was a prof (or similar) in aerodynamics. Somehow the conversation turned to how the heck a bumble bee generates enough lift. The prof said, "well let's see now...", reached for a napkin, scribbled out some standard engineer's rule of thumb formulae, inserted some rough top-of-the-head guesses for weight, wingspan, etc, then did the math... Laughed and said "well according to this, it's impossible for the bee to fly!". Having by then covered almost the entire napkin (and possibly consumed nearly the entire bottle of wine), he didn't bother continuing at that point. I've no idea if he ever made a more serious attempt at analysis, but presumably via numerous after-dinner retellings the story has transformed into the myth that "according to the laws of classical aerodynamics, it's impossible for a bumble bee to fly!"
The correct conclusion would have been: "if you want to understand how a bumble bee files, be sure to specify extra-large napkins." =:o}