• reksas@sopuli.xyz
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    14 hours ago

    maybe it works kind of like how water works. Water also sticks to itself, like how separate droplets combine very fast when close enough.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      12 hours ago

      Well in fluid dynamics you don’t really make the distinction between liquid and gas. You can model air as basically just a very low viscosity fluid and it works. No one really knows why it works because it shouldn’t, air doesn’t stick to itself, but if you pretend that it does the simulations still work, even though they’re wrong.

      If you look in most physics textbooks even at quite a high level they will tell you that aircraft fly because air sticks to itself, but again, it doesn’t. No one is quite sure why aircraft work, no one’s all that certain where the lift comes from. But physics textbooks hate to admit that so they just pretend that air sticks to itself.

      • rethnor@lemmy.zip
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        7 hours ago

        The whole air moves faster over the top than the bottom, why would it do that? It’s not like the on the top of the wing and the bottom of the wing are connected by magic.