h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Bees (flight + existence) - A1013941
Author: Zoanthus - U224023

Clearly bees have been flying a lot longer than Professors of Aerodynamics, so they know they are right and the combined intelect of our seats of learning are wrong.

Bees can fly, teachers of Aerodynamics know less than bees. QED

Hi Burningchrome, Welcome to h2g2

Hmmm I wonder if you noticed the date on that 'Bees' Entry?

Though, it was a day late, I think we can safely assume is was an April Fool hoax not the type of Entry suitable for Peer Review. (Unless it's part of an Entry on April Fool Hoaxes, and we have one of those A517240)

Peer Review is the first step for Guide Entries heading for the <./>FrontPage</.> and into the Edited Guide. For that, they need to be factually based, balanced and as accurate as possible. You might find reading Writing-Guidelines useful, where you can find lots of tips and advice about the type of Entries suitable for Peer Review. Or you can read some that have already been through the Peer Review process by clicking <./>RandomEditedEntry</.> Some of the older Edited Entries are not good examples of the type of Entries that are accepted for the Edited Guide nowadays.

Maybe you would like to explore h2g2 a little more, find out what different writing forums and parts of the site are for, to help you do that, I'll post an Ace Welcome on your page/space after I post this.

(The author has not posted since April 2003, if only the author can remove it, I guess someone will need to request the Editors to remove it. )

Emmily

Well, the reason that a bumble bee is incapable of flight is that simple calculations involving the mass of a bee, and the lift it can achieve by simple flapppingf of its wings show that it cannot achieve 'lift off'. Furthermore, it has been shown that the bee's wing muscles do not contract and relax fast enough to account for the bumble bees rapid wing beat.

These facts have been of considerable interest to scientists, and a source of considerable mirth to others. However, itt is evident that the physiology of the bee must be rather interesting and worthy of study.
High speed photography has shown that bees do not flap their wings like a bird. Rather, after every downstroke, a bee's wing rotates about the axis of its leading edge. On the return stroke, the leading edge sweeps backwards, with the rest of the wing below it, before rising back to its original position.. In this way the bees wing provides lift on both the up and down strokes, in contrast to the flapping motion of a birds wing.

Furthermore, the bees wings are embedded in a special block of substance thart vibrates when twitched by a muscle - rather like an elastic band does when it's pinged. The bees wings vibrate in time to the block and the bee only needs to keep 'pinging' it to keep flying. A bumble bees wing beats 150 times per second.

This design enables air currents, when they hit the edge of the wing, to turn into spiralling eddie currents, or vortices, which sit over the top surface. These effectively increase the thickn4ess of the wing and create a thicker obstacle for the air to pass over. RThe result is greatly enhanced lift.

Some of these effects were published in a paper in Nature in December, 1996. Those researchers were baffled as to how these vortices appear, and why they're so stable.

The Nature scientists built a device called a flapper, about 10 times the size of a moth to study insect wings in a wind tunnel, so that eddies could be observed.

tHERE ARE COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS TO THIS. e.G. IT SHOULD BE POSSIBLE TO DESIGN A JUMBO JET WITH WINGS ONE-TENTH THE CURRENT SIZE. for shouting - JUST GOT A BIT EXCITED!

Trust you to have a scientific reason for a hoax BigAl (We're pals, BigAl knows I'm only teasing)

I assume that was a simpost

Emmily

Oops . That first sentencxe should have read, "The reason that a bumble bee is considered to be scientifically incapable of flight is...

'tHERE ARE COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS TO THIS. e.G. IT SHOULD BE POSSIBLE TO DESIGN A JUMBO JET WITH WINGS ONE-TENTH THE CURRENT SIZE. for shouting - JUST GOT A BIT EXCITED!'

I doubt it. The vibration problems would be ENORMOUS.

Unless you're just joshing with us again, of course.

I actually wrote a sketch about this once that was used in the sixth-form review at my old school. No-one found it funny at all apart from me. So my advice to you is do not write sketches about scientific anomalies for the benefit of 14-16 year olds. They will merely regard you with contempt.

With regard to the way that bees' wings work, from the way you described it they are not entirely different from all birds. If you watch slow-motion film of hummingbirds hovering you will see that their wings work in a very similar way.

I didn't mean that the jet's wings would vibrate like a bees... but if one could understand how vortices are created and stabilised over the wing, then thge wing could be one-tenth the size.

I intended this contribution to be serious, not funny... and I don't write for the benefit of 14-16 year olds (I don't even teach 'em, for the reason you describe), but for the bernefit of those who might find it interesting.

I think the wings of humming birds are probably much more like those of a bee trhan a conventional bird.

I guessed that you didn't write your piece for the benefit of 14-16 year olds. I was just suggesting that it's not worth it, if you ever thought of doing such a thing.

From the description in your piece, it also sounds like the thing that creates the vortices is the lateral movement of the wing back and forth. As the wing is moved through the air, it creates a vacuum which sucks air over the leading edge, leading to a rolling 'vortice' airflow.

That's just speculation, though. I'm not a professional aerodynamicist.

Well, as far as I recall, they're vertical vortices; but it's a long time since I read anything on this.

There's no hoax. There is a misconception, which is carefully explained in the article linked to from this entry. But the author of this entry didn't understand the explanation.

The author doesn't seem to be around. (This thread was not posted to PR by the author, but by someone who thought this Entry is EG material.)

I suggest moving this thread to underneath the Entry. Seconders?

HELL

Yes, I second.

Thirded.

I mentioned in post #2 that it had not been submitted by the author, and the author hadn't posted since 2003 Hell, but wasn't sure whether to email Scoutsforum about it.

Emmily

Sorry, Emmily, I didn't go through the entire backlog.

I'm posting this to the forum.

Ta.

HELL

Ok Hell, I was trying to be tackful, I see by the email you understood what I was doing.

Emmily

When the case is clear (as it is here) I think we don't have to put on velvet gloves.

HELL