Quote:
Originally posted by PhanthomOps,
Concerning your last statements - natural order of things, it seems to me that you would prefer to accept scientific fact as a basis of belief - if so, please explain scientifically why the Bumble Bee flies.
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The myth of the bumble bee that couldn't fly was actually a comical case of unscientific reasoning. It all started in the 1930's when a noted Swiss aerodynamicist was talking to a biologist at dinner. The biologist asked about the flight of bees and the Swiss gentleman did a "back-of-the-napkin" calculation assuming a rigid smooth wing and so on. Of course, he found that there was insufficient lift and went off to find out the correct answer. The biologist spread the word the bees could fly, presumably to show that nature was greater than engineering, however the truth wasn't newsworthy so a correction was never publicized.
The wings of a bumblebee are, of course, not rigid and they flap and bend in a way to create vortices of air just above them producing an area of low pressure that keeps them suspended in mid-air.