Absolutely true. The physical theories as understood at the time of the
original comment were completely sufficient to explain the flight of
bumblebees ... they just weren't thoroughly applied by the careless
people who originally made the claim.
By the way, some simple searching on Google will point out that even at
the time of the original comment, there was very little academic support
for the comment. It was the result of a narrow analysis picked up by
the media and turned into widespread urban legend by technophobes who
think such illustrations of scientific "inconsistency" reinforce their
own preference for perception (easy) over understanding (difficult).
Scientific "Laws" are indeed subject to error and misinterpretation
(usually the latter), but there is far more rigor and fear of error in
the establishment of those laws than there is in 99.999999999 percent of
the opinions of those who mistrust them.
In the case of EZNEC, there are some pretty well known opportunities for
error that can be avoided with care, and there are some fairly simple
reality checks that can be performed on any model to look for flawed
results. EZNEC is a tool like any other ... use it ignorantly and you
will be prone to incorrect results (I have some experience in that
regard), just like the folks who couldn't figure out how a bumblebee flies.
73,
Dave AB7E
On 5/13/2011 11:56 AM, Steve Hunt wrote:
> You're quite mistaken - none of the Laws of Physics had to be adjusted.
> What changed was that they were applied more completely to the problem
> instead of making simplifying assumptions - that's a quite different issue!
>
> 73,
> Steve G3TXQ
>
>
>
> On 13/05/2011 18:58, Blair S Balden wrote:
>> Hi everyone, my 2 cents:
>> Re the bumblebees: It looks like the "Laws of Physics" had to be adjusted
>> in the face of reality (at least our understanding of the laws of physics).
>> Just proves we don't know everything there is to know about our universe
>> yet, so we shouldn't be too doctrinaire about our current version of the
>> "Laws." We should always be prepared to adjust the laws based on
>> observations of reality. Theory is important, and so is observation. So is
>> keeping an open mind about the correctness or completeness of any given
>> theory.
>> Best regards,
>> Blair NP2F
>>
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