I too missed the memo that Bernoulli’s Principle no longer explains lift. Maybe Shagnasty is thinking of the “equal transit time” fallacy?
Several years ago, in response to the news that there was to be a lunar eclipse that night, a young secretary where I was employed (and yes, she was blonde) commented, “Oooh, don’t look at it! You’ll go blind!” Umm, no. “Yes,” she insisted, “I heard that if you look at an eclipse you’ll burn out your eyes!” No, I explained, that’s a solar eclipse. You look at a full moon, don’t you? How could one that’s being put into a shadow hurt you? She looked quite confused. “What causes an eclipse of the moon?” I asked, morphing into full schoolteacher mode. “Ummm, isn’t that when the sun gets between the earth and the moon?” :smack:
Yep. And when it does, run like hell!
No, it’s safe as long as it happens at night.
Speaking of which, a lot of people think there is a “dark side of the moon” that never gets sunshine.
I just came here to post that very thing. What holds the earth to the moon moo-rons?
A related one: “Wow, you went to Space Camp? Did you get to go in that room where they take out the gravity?”
If that was one person that would be one thing, but dozens of people have asked that. There are airplanes that give 30 seconds of 0g at a time but rooms on the ground simply can’t have their gravity turned off.
This one kills me. There is a dark side of the moon, just as there’s a dark side of the Earth. But no area is permanantly dark, to the befuddlement of many people who learned science from Pink Floyd.
I got in an argument about this with a fellow student once. After I convinced him, he explained that he must have just had a momentary lapse of reason.
During a conversation with my carpool buddy about the ID/Evolution court decision, he said, “And how do you know that carbon dating isn’t just something someone made up to support their side of the argument?” I honestly thought about going into a description of isotopes and decay, but decided against it.
No, I am obsessed with all things aviation and know a fair amount about it. Bernoulli’s principle is not an accurate representation of what generates lift on an aircraft wing. It is a minor component of lift however and is not completely wrong in that sense.
I suppose you weren’t the kid that interrupted the teacher to ask how airplanes usually fly upside down if that was the case? They usually mumble something about how planes don’t usually fly upside down for long as if that makes a difference.
Anyway, the real explanation is both more simple and much more complicated than you would be led to believe. A full understanding requires some serious math and fluid dynamics.
However, the almost full answer is based on Newtonian principles. Air strikes the airplane wind at an angle and that pushed the airplane up. You can do the same thing by sticking your hand out of a fast moving car. This principle is called “Angle of Attack”.
How Stuff Works has a pretty good explanation of this although they are lax in saying just how minor Bernoulli’s effect is in comparison to Angle of Attack.
Several whole books have been written on this subject. I have no idea why textbook writers picked this rather obscure effect out to highlight. I suppose that is evidence that they just copy from each other.
This is slightly related, but I have an insanely intelligent friend who does not believe in the Big Bang or our theory of planetary formation. She is a Christian, but believes in Evolution, so it just confuses me.
“A planet can not form from a speck of dust!” Well, not a speck, but if you say “many, many specks” then you would be doing all right. Plus, it was just a model, until the '90s when they got absolute proof through photographs.
Also, why she doesn’t believe in the Big Bang is an absolute mystery. I’m pretty sure it is quasi-science bullshit her church has taught her, because the Big Bang can be both atheistic or theistic depending on how you look at it. Even though it is now generally accepted that it was inclusive and nothing happened outside of it, it still can be argued for a creator.
“You’ve been outside at night, right?”
“Yea?”
“Well, it’s dark because of the Big Bang. In fact, Edgar Alan Poe was the first to postulate on why it is dark at night. You see, the light present at the Big Bang has streched through time, so that now it is no longer visible light but a rather cool and streched out microwave radiation.”
“The Big Bang never happened.”
“There is a uniform background radiation left over the Big Bang. You want evidence of this radiation? Well, ever watch a T.V with static? The black and white ‘snow’?”
“Yea?”
“Well, one percent of that is due to interference from the microwave background radiation.”
“You’re wrong.”
I love her, though, mostly cause she keeps me quick.
The other 99% is commercials.
I know a physics Ph.D who seems to believe the TV psychics like John Edward are for real. And this person teaches at a university. Scary.
… and then 0g smash.
My father believes that the 5-second rule is an established scientific truth. He heard it from “a doctor on the radio”, or “some scientists did a study - it was on TV”.
The tsunami was caused by global warming.
When I heard that, I decided retreat was the best option, so I changed the topic.
I bet the discussion left you comfortably numb.
John Curley, an otherwise amusing TV personality for Seattle’s Evening Magazine, recently spit out a bunch of “factoids” that weren’t factual. They included the famous ‘a duck’s quack doesn’t echo’ and one or two other bad-science nominees:
http://www.acoustics.salford.ac.uk/acoustics_world/duck/duck.htm
I don’t know who started the “duck’s quack” falsehood but I don’t think that one will ever die.
I was going to fire off a missive to Mr. Curley but missed my chance to fight that bit of ignorance.
Best regards,
Mooney252
The problem isn’t so much Pink Floyd, as it’s simply a stupid and outdated name to describe what it is. I think it’s a perfectly reasonable assumption to think that “the dark side” of something is called such because it’s actually dark. I suppose they meant “dark” as in “unknown”, but that’s terribly misleading, especially to young students.
It should be called something more accurate like “the far side” or the “hidden side” of the moon.
A couple years ago I heard someone talking about a recent volcano eruption, and she blamed it on humans screwing up the enviroment.
My highschool biology teacher thought that an ice cube wouldn’t lose volume when it melted. We melted ice cubes for two days, trying to get the experiment to turn out as he insisted. The principal finally had to come in and set him straight. Sheesh.