"You cannot change the laws of Physics." Engineer Scott said but was he right?

[Saiyaman]

"You cannot change the laws of Physics." Engineer Scott said but was he right?

Here's something to wrap your head around:

According to our laws of physics a Bumble bee should not be able to fly. Its wings are too small for it's bodysize to be lifted up.

and yet what does a bumble bee do...

So are our laws of Physics wrong or does this insect know something we don't know?

 

[StrangeLife]

So are our laws of Physics wrong or does this insect know something we don't know?

Neither. According to the laws of physics the bumblebee is an excellent flier. And observations seem to support this...

 

[Bramblethorn]

According to our laws of physics a Bumble bee should not be able to fly.

Says who?

 

[slyc_willie]

The problem with "the laws of physics" is that we think we've figured them all out.

 

[ishtat]

The problem with "the laws of physics" is that we think we've figured them all out.

No. At the sub-atomic level there is still much to discover.

Engineer Scott was right in one sense though, you cannot change them whether you know or do not know all of them. Additionally, such laws may be different in a different universe.

 

[sunandshadow]

According to our laws of physics a Bumble bee should not be able to fly. Its wings are too small for it's bodysize to be lifted up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumblebee#Misconceptions

 

[Bramblethorn]

No. At the sub-atomic level there is still much to discover.

Engineer Scott was right in one sense though, you cannot change them whether you know or do not know all of them. Additionally, such laws may be different in a different universe.

Also, there's a world of difference between knowing the rules and being able to apply them to RL situations. Some very simple rules can lead to complex, unpredictable consequences - see e.g. emergent properties and nonlinear systems.

 

[Handley_Page]

From Wiki on Bumblebee:

Flight

A widely believed falsehood holds that scientists proved that bumblebees are incapable of flight[39]

According to 20th century folklore, the laws of aerodynamics prove that the bumblebee should be incapable of flight, as it does not have the capacity (in terms of wing size or beats per second) to achieve flight with the degree of wing loading necessary. The origin of this claim has been difficult to pin down with any certainty. John McMasters recounted an anecdote about an unnamed Swiss aerodynamicist at a dinner party who performed some rough calculations and concluded, presumably in jest, that according to the equations, bumblebees cannot fly.[40] In later years McMasters has backed away from this origin, suggesting that there could be multiple sources, and that the earliest he has found was a reference in the 1934 book Le vol des insectes by French entomologist Antoine Magnan (1881–1938); they had applied the equations of air resistance to insects and found that their flight was impossible, but that "One shouldn't be surprised that the results of the calculations don't square with reality".[41]

The following passage appears in the introduction to Le Vol des Insectes:

Tout d'abord poussé par ce qui se fait en aviation, j'ai appliqué aux insectes les lois de la résistance de l'air, et je suis arrivé avec M. Sainte-Laguë à cette conclusion que leur vol est impossible.

This translates to:

First prompted by what is done in aviation, I applied the laws of air resistance to insects, and I arrived, with Mr. Sainte-Laguë, at this conclusion that their flight is impossible.

Magnan refers to his assistant André Sainte-Laguë.[42]

Some credit physicist Ludwig Prandtl (1875–1953) of the University of Göttingen in Germany with popularizing the idea. Others say it was Swiss gas dynamicist Jacob Ackeret (1898–1981) who did the calculations.[43]

The calculations that purported to show that bumblebees cannot fly are based upon a simplified linear treatment of oscillating aerofoils. The method assumes small amplitude oscillations without flow separation. This ignores the effect of dynamic stall, an airflow separation inducing a large vortex above the wing, which briefly produces several times the lift of the aerofoil in regular flight. More sophisticated aerodynamic analysis shows that the bumblebee can fly because its wings encounter dynamic stall in every oscillation cycle.

Additionally, John Maynard Smith, a noted biologist with a strong background in aeronautics, has pointed out that bumblebees would not be expected to sustain flight, as they would need to generate too much power given their tiny wing area. However, in aerodynamics experiments with other insects he found that viscosity at the scale of small insects meant that even their small wings can move a very large volume of air relative to the size, and this reduces the power required to sustain flight by an order of magnitude.[45]

Another description of a bee's wing function is that the wings work similarly to helicopter blades, "reverse-pitch semirotary helicopter blades".

Bees beat their wings approximately 200 times a second. Their thorax muscles do not expand and contract on each nerve firing but rather vibrate like a plucked rubber band. This is efficient, since it lets the system consisting of muscle and wing operate at its resonant frequency, leading to low energy consumption. Further, it is necessary, since nerves cannot fire 200 times per second. These types of muscles are called asynchronous muscles [46] and are often found in insect wings.

 

[NaokoSmith]

Acksherly, Scottie says:
"Ye canna change the lores of physicx, Capt'n." The dreadful Scots accent is very important.

 

[Weird Harold]

From Wiki on Bumblebee:

Flight

A widely believed falsehood holds that scientists proved that bumblebees are incapable of flight[39]

According to 20th century folklore, the laws of aerodynamics prove that the bumblebee should be incapable of flight, ... earliest he has found was a reference in the 1934 book Le vol des insectes by French entomologist Antoine Magnan (1881–1938); ...

To further refute the original premise of this thread, there is nothing said about the "Laws of Physics," but rather it is a failing of the "Laws of Aerodynamics" -- as understood in the 1930s, when supersonic flight was not thought to be possible either.