3 ms·
This explains a lot. I've always wondered about how insects can survive large falls (e.g. from desks or ceilings) mostly unharmed, yet for humans a fall from a
by Padding 12y ago
This explains a lot.
I've always wondered about how insects can survive large falls (e.g. from desks or ceilings) mostly unharmed, yet for humans a fall from a similar height, relatively to the body size, would be certain death.
- lutusp 12y agoYes -- there's a folk tale about how a bumblebee is an aerodynamic impossibility. What that actually means is if a bumblebee is scaled up to the size of a bird, say, it can't stay aloft because its wing area is only increasing as the square, but its volume and mass as the cube, of the size change.
- jacquesm 12y agoThe same applies to scaling up helicopters. It is much easier to scale up a plane than to scale up a chopper. A nice example of this is the little 3/4/6/hex copters that you see RC models of. Scaling those up is very hard if not impossible.
- sanoli 12y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumblebee#Misconceptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumblebee#Misconceptions