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I'm truly baffled at how people keep claiming that we don't understand how wings work when this obvious explanation is out there, one that any 8-year-old could
by belovedeagle 12y ago
I'm truly baffled at how people keep claiming that we don't understand how wings work when this obvious explanation is out there, one that any 8-year-old could give you, and it's absolutely right. "We don't understand how planes could fly upside down"---nonsense; it's the same way they flight right-side-up: by pushing the air down (or pulling, if you like).
- mikeash 12y agoThe problem is that people see the various different explanations for how a wing works (pushing the air down, pressure differential, speed differential, circulation, what have you) and they think they're competing theories, not just different perspectives on the same phenomenon. Edit: and of course it doesn't help at all that the silly and trivially disproven equal transit time theory continues to be the go-to explanation for how wings work for so many attempts to teach it.
- renox 12y agoWell, in my school (in France) the explanation was the 'equal transit time' which of course didn't satisfy me at all (it took me a long time to get a satisfying explanation). So when schools teach this kind of BS, you can expect that the confusion will last a long time..