The Bee Can't Fly - 06th May 2007
Reading Time 1 minutes and 48 seconds
For a Podcast of this thought please click here
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In my garden this weekend I saw a bumblebee buzzing around some flowers and even though I had seen this a thousand times before I was amazed at how big and un-aerodynamic the bee is.
This reminded me of the old story of the bee can't fly, but no one told the bee.
It's difficult to pin down
exactly where the story came from as it could be from a dinner party
with Ludvic Prendal an aerodynamics professor or it could be from a 1934
book by entomologist Antoine Magnan, who discussed a mathematical
equation by Andre Sainte-Lague, an engineer. However the myth
originated, the failure is that no allowance was made for the fact
that the wings aren't static. They move in a figure of eight
rotation and create little vortices that combine with a very fast wing
beat (200 beats per second) to help the bumblebee achieve flight.
The myth that the bee couldn't fly first spread as a joke in
German universities. But later it became a "fact" among the
public and even today lots of notes on the internet still say that
the bee can't fly, which frankly I think is incredible.
So I wondered.
Have I been told that things aren't possible and unlike the bee I've believed them.
Believed them, even when there was evidence all around, which suggests it is possible.
YES, was my resounding answer
So I'm going to start asking myself the following questions
Who said I can't or it can't be done,
How do they, or I, know that it can't be done!
Is it my FEAR, False Evidence Appearing Real, which wants me to think it can't be done.
Then maybe if I can answer these questions, I'll become more like the bee, proving to myself and others it really can be done over and over and over again.
Believe in yourself, till next week
Regards David G
