> the air on top indeed move faster, we only don't know why We know exactly why. The mass of air above the wing is moving into a larger physical volume, so it

> the air on top indeed move faster, we only don't know why We know exactly why. The mass of air above the wing is moving into a larger physical volume, so it spreads out to a lower pressure. Bernoulli showed that pressure and flow velocity are always related (for non viscous flows), so where you get a low pressure you'll also get increased velocity. The "to catch up" part is wrong, as well as the idea that it's the "longer path" that makes the air speed up. A symmetrical airfoil still generates lift as long as it has some angle of attack. Now, there is one complexity here in that air isn't totally inviscid. It does have some viscosity, and this creates some complex boundary layer effects and turbulence. So the Bernoulli explanation is a bit of an approximation. The "real" math is Navier-Stokes, but that's not useful to most people for understanding flows based on looking at formulas (it's the math that underlies computational simulation of fluids but nearly useless with pen and paper). A better "highschool textbook" explanation is the concept of circulation, which captures most of the important details without requiring you to understand tensors and vector calc.