I should have typed "Didn't we once believe that a bumblebee
should not be able to fly?"
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1076/is-it-aerodynamically-impossible-for-bumblebees-to-fly
"... a faulty analogy between bees and conventional fixed-wing aircraft.
Bees' wings are small relative to their bodies. If an airplane were
built the same way, it'd never get off the ground. But bees aren't like
airplanes, they're like helicopters. Their wings work on the same
principle as helicopter blades — to be precise, "reverse-pitch
semirotary helicopter blades," to quote one authority. A moving airfoil,
whether it's a helicopter blade or a bee wing, generates a lot more lift
than a stationary one.
"The real challenge with bees wasn't figuring out the aerodynamics but
the mechanics: specifically, how bees can move their wings so fast —
roughly 200 beats per second, which is 10 or 20 times the firing rate of
the nervous system. The trick apparently is that the bee's wing muscles
(thorax muscles, actually) don't expand and contract so much as vibrate,
like a rubber band. A nerve impulse comes along and twangs the muscle,
much as you might pluck a guitar string, and it vibrates the wing up and
down a few times until the next impulse comes along. Cecil is sliding
over a few subtleties here, but nobody ever said science for the masses
was pretty."
— Cecil Adams
> Fuqua, Bill L wrote:
> I believe that has been well explained.
>
> ________________________________________
> From: Amps [amps-bounces@contesting.com] on behalf of qrv@kd4e.com
> [qrv@kd4e.com]
> Sent: Monday, January 12, 2015 2:27 PM
> To: amps@contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [Amps] The genius of ham radio
>
> Doesn't "theory" say that a bumblebee cannot fly?
>
>> One of the definitions of the word "theory" by Merriam-Webster
>>
>> : an idea that is suggested or presented as possibly true but that is
>> not known or proven to be true
>>
>> Much like "aerodynamic" theory taught in various schools, generally
>> accepted by many subject matter experts as an explanation of various
>> aerodynamic phenomena.
>>
>> k0cwo
--
*David*
~KD4E~
Nevils, Georgia USA
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