Science finally explains how bees fly

[Brian G Turner]

Just in case you didn't know, bees have always apparently broken the laws of physics - their wings were too small for their bodies.

A few years back it was in the news that this had been solved - that small vortices produced by them flying provided the extra lift, due to the complexities of fluid dynamics.

However, a new story in New Scientist this weeks suggests it was a false start, and that in fact these vortices simply allow the wings to work at steep angles that can provide enough lift:

Maths explains how bees can stay airborne with such tiny wings

Posted especially for anyone who thinks that science has always been able to explain everything immediately around us.

It might be worth revisiting whether this also applies to fish, who can swim faster than the laws of physics allow ...

 

[SilentRoamer]

Posted especially for anyone who thinks that science has always been able to explain everything immediately around us.

I'm probably a good target audience.

As someone who believes the laws of physics are inviolate I suspect we just don't understand how it works fully and there ill be some as yet unexplained mechanism.

I expect the same with fish - that rather than an animal naturally breaking the laws of physics it is most likely a misunderstanding on the part of man.

Likewise there are probably many things we think we understand that we actually falsely ascribe to another mechanism.

So when I say "I believe the laws of physics are inviolate" I mean I think there are a set of natural laws (partly understood by us) which hold true, but our current understanding is not complete so when we say "break the laws of physics" it may in fact just mean change the way we understand physics to work.

But yeah - Bees are pretty awesome but not as cool as humming birds!

 

[Biskit]

So when I say "I believe the laws of physics are inviolate" I mean I think there are a set of natural laws (partly understood by us) which hold true, but our current understanding is not complete so when we say "break the laws of physics" it may in fact just mean change the way we understand physics to work.

That's where the importance of experimental data comes in. Theory says a bee can't fly, bees obviously do, so there's something wrong with the theory or, in a more abstract sense, what you think you observed is not necessarily what happened. (OK, as a former bee-keeper, I'm pretty sure bees do fly.)

As a young post-grad student, I ran the same standard materials through the same standard experiments as all the previous generations of student - method A gives an answer almost identical to method B and when you slap the error-bars on, you can confidently say that they really are the same. Then I wrote a rough draft of the appropriate chapter of the thesis, saying all that in slightly different words to all the previous students.
Then my supervisor asked me to run an experiment that no-one else had bothered with. It was almost one of those classic 'in my day' or 'when I were a lad' stories, but I did it anyway, just for fun - who can say no to plugging two 24kw pulse generators back to back? I mean, if I get it wrong, the bang will be awesome...
No bang, just really weird answers that my boss said had to be wrong and I ought run the experiment again. It took me most of the next three years to know enough to explain that not only was the weird answer not wrong, but method A and method B actually give different answers, but so close together that the difference was on a par with the experimental errors. I re-wrote that chapter-draft and turned it into an aside - hey this isn't the main point of my thesis, but everybody else got this wrong.

Even with the best theory in the world, if you can't explain why A isn't exactly the same as B, or why the bee hasn't fallen out of the sky, it isn't right. That holds true whether you're trying to align relativity theory with quantum mechanics, understand the origin of the universe, or just testing the electro-optical properties of PTFE colloids.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I had a great science teacher all the way through secondary school who wasn't afraid to point out the questions physics was unable to answer. Especially when he set up experiments for the class to follow that didn't work as intended - he'd often joke that he'd accidentally broken the laws of physics.

It left me with a great sense of science as a process of discovery that was still very much ongoing. I learned to look at the questions we hadn't answered and to ask why.

I once asked him how it was possible for a bee to fly. He replied that they must have quantum generators.

He also lent me a book on particle physics and quarks which I completely forgot to return, but helped feed my love of the subject.

I've mentioned elsewhere that it remains a personal frustration that I never studied physics at degree level, but I never got the maths training I needed to do so. I guess the plus from that is that it's allowed my imagination to challenge scientific paradigms and ideas in my writing without being constrained by any particular academic view - of which I've since learned are many!

EDIT: It's probably the same with my love of history. It's great to learn at a distance and on my own terms as a personal interest, but I think I would become bored by it if I studied it academically.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Could've sworn I saw a few years ago a programme that explain bees can fly because they angle their wings on the backswing, as it were, so they get lift in both direction of wingbeats.

 

[hiruadjas]

Fish swim faster than physics allows? This is news to me. I think Michael Phelps swims faster than physics should allow

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Fish swim faster than physics allows? This is news to me. I think Michael Phelps swims faster than physics should allow

Well, then at least sharks definitely do, because the shark beat the snot out of Michael Phelps in the test they showed this week for Shark Week. I'm not sure why they made such a show out of it, except ratings, because it was blindingly obvious that Michael Phelps couldn't beat a shark without strapping on a jet pack.

 

[Vladd67]

Well, then at least sharks definitely do, because the shark beat the snot out of Michael Phelps in the test they showed this week for Shark Week. I'm not sure why they made such a show out of it, except ratings, because it was blindingly obvious that Michael Phelps couldn't beat a shark without strapping on a jet pack.

It was the fuss people made about the shark being a cgi, did they think he was really going to race an actual shark?

 

[TheDustyZebra]

To get back on topic, can we have Michael Phelps race a swarm of bees next time?

 

[J Riff]

A centipede went crost the bathroom floor today, it was like a streak of light. One hunnert legs can really boot it.

 

[BAYLOR]

Mind over matter. The bee flies for the simple that it believes it can fly.

 

[Cathbad]

It's all Fake Science.

Bees don't fly on their own: Years ago, American scientists created a tiny jet pack and coded it into all bees' DNA. They are technological wonders!

 

[BAYLOR]

It's all Fake Science.

Bees don't fly on their own: Years ago, American scientists created a tiny jet pack and coded it into all bees' DNA. They are technological wonders!

There have been dark rumors that the bees are raising an army to conquer the world . It was document in the Outer Limits episode ZZZZZ.But then, the Bees hushed it all up.

 

[Cathbad]

There have been dark rumors that the bees are raising an army to conquer the world . It was document in the Outer Limits episode ZZZZZ.But then, the Bees hushed it all up.

See what happens when we fool with Mother Nature!?

 

[BAYLOR]

See what happens when we fool with Mother Nature!?

The same thing that happened when scientists tampered with the the Jackalope genome

 

[Cathbad]

Jackagnome??

 

[BAYLOR]

Jackagnome??

The Jackalope a creature that is part deer and part jackrabbit, small , docile and wouldn't hurt a fly. But that all changed one day, when a bunch of scientists hell bent on giving hunters a new and exciting game animal to hunt. So they tampered with the genome of Jacklope and ended up creating something far worse then Frankenstein's monster. The resulting creature , was much larger, bipedal, super strong, supper swift, super intelligent and super violent. The creature possessed the innate strategic skills of a Napoleon combined wit the weapons proficiency and combat skills of a John Rambo. Yes there were trophies collected but the Hunters were not the ones collecting. Those Hunters never stood a chance.

 

[Harpo]

How does a bee ring a doorbell?

 

[Alex The G and T]

Your Car Warranty is in danger of expiring.