MythTickle by Justin Thompson for July 19, 2010

Concentration is the key. You must block out all distractions, even Karma.

Ommm! Ommmm! Uff!

There’s a trick to it. First you lift up your right foot. Then you lift up your left foot.

Um… Now how do I get down?

Cartoon physics: nothing can harm a character until they become aware that what they’re doing is impossible (also known as the Coyote Principle).

According to 20th century folklore, the laws of aerodynamics prove that the bumblebee should be incapable of flight, as it does not have the capacity (in terms of wing size or beats per second) to achieve flight with the degree of wing loading necessary.

Luckily, nobody ever told the bumblebees!

Sheik, they found out recently what makes the bumblebee fly. It’s quite possible (and clever) physically.

Like I said, don’t try to outgeek me when I’m well-rested. :))

(I’m thinking of clarifying some remarks about Star Wars elsewhere, but doing so may not be worth the time… if I do I’ll let you know.)

Actually the HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy (By Douglas Adams) has this to say on the subject of flying.

There is an art, it says, or, rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day, it suggests, and try it. “The first part is easy. All it requires is simply the ability to throw yourself forward with all your weight, and the willingness not to mind that it’s going to hurt. That is, it’s going to hurt if you fail to miss the ground. “Most people fail to miss the ground and if they are really trying properly, the likelihood is that they will fail to miss it fairly hard. Clearly, it is this second part, the missing, which presents the difficulties. “One problem is that you have to miss the ground accidentally. It’s no good deliberately intending to miss the ground because you won’t. You have to have your attention suddenly distracted by something else when you’re halfway there, so that you are no longer thinking about falling, or about the ground or about how much it’s going to hurt if you fail to miss it. “It is notoriously difficult to pry your attention away from these three things during the split second you have at your disposal. Hence most people’s failure, and their eventual disillusionment with this exhilarating and spectacular sport. “If, however, you are lucky enough to have your attention momen-tarily distracted at the crucial moment by, say, a gorgeous pair of legs (tentacles, pseudopodia, according to phyllum and/or personal inclination) or a bomb going off in your vicinity, or by suddenly spotting an extremely rare species of beetle crawling along a nearby twig, then in your astonishment you will miss the ground completely and remain bobbing just a few inches above it in what might seem to be a slightly foolish manner. “This is a moment for superb and delicate concentration.”

“The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.” Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Cartoon Physics isn’t that much different from reality, just a bit exaggerated. Consider how many times in real life we go bumbling along doing something that can’t possibly work, but does… up to the moment that somebody says, “you know, that can’t possibly work…” It’s pretty much the essence of the business cycle–people keep putting money into stocks, or real estate, or gold, or whatever, in the belief that it’s going to keep going up forever. And it does, right up to the moment somebody says, “you know, that stock’s price-to-earnings is thoroughly ridiculous”–and then everybody loses confidence at once, the share price plummets from seventy dollars a share to seventy cents, and we all wonder why nobody told us this before we put all our money into it…

I’m wondering about that title–“the Dusty Archives”? Does Justin also keep some “Clean Archives”?

It works as long as you don’t think of an elephant.

That whole “bumblebees can’t fly” business started out as a really silly statement from a physicist of old (’20s or thereabouts). It totally failed to consider the bumblebee as a dynamic system. As a static system, they probably can’t fly - just toss a dead bumblebee up in the air and see how well it flies.

Ganesha can’t fly, anyhow. Why should he, when he can just ride his rat? Really - a rat. Check out your Indian mythology.

I heard there was an asteroid coming & suggested we mount rockets on it & guide it where we will. Into orbit to build things, then wherever. Real estate on the hoof. Dad said; “Impossible,” & “Can’t be done.” I said; “Not with that attitude.” His look was priceless.

Arthur C. Clarke formulated the following three “laws” of prediction:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong.

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

This section on bumblebee flight has a nice summary of the whole discussion of the subject. It also explains the Sheik’s reference to “20th century folklore”.

And speaking of folklore: An elephant riding a rat? That makes about as much sense as the world riding a turtle.

The smaller an object, the more its aerodynamics resemble hydrodynamics. The bumblebee is doing something that is partway between flying and swimming.

Stopped by a garden today, watching the bumblebees attending the purple coneflowers and the honeybees attending the catmint. Charming.

Ganesha isn’t an elephant. He’s an ordinary human being (well “human being” in the Hindu diety sense) whose head was replaced by an elephant’s head. And yes, he rides a rat. The rat isn’t always one of those tiny little rats you see in Walt Disney movies, mind - more the size of a Shetland pony or bigger, even. Besides, when you’re talking about Hindu mythology, an elephant-headed diety who rides around on a rat is pretty well normal.

This isn’t folklore, anyway. It’s religion or something.

@Johanan Rakkav, don’t worry–“it’s turtles all the way down.”