Fat Bumble Bees and Human Thought trees

It is only fitting to reminisce about the ever-captivating exordium of the Bee Movie: "According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way that a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground...” Upon further research of this matter, one must admit the number of mathmagicians, physicists, and aeronautical engineers who have spent their lovely afternoons researching the science behind a small fluffy creature’s flight is quite sweet, hysterical, and fascinating at the same time. While various scientific sectors seem to agree that the calculations conclude that bumble bee flight is impossible, bees do, in fact, fly. The matter boiled down to bee wing anatomy. "Understanding bee wings was key to figuring out how bees could fly. Their wings are not rigid but twist and rotate during flight. Bee wings make short, quick sweeping motions front and back, front and back. This motion creates enough lift to make it possible for bees to fly," Arizona State University's Ask a Biologist series explains. As they flap their wings, they create mini vortices in the air. These tiny vortices have lower pressure than the air around them, helping to get and keep the bees airborne” (Felton 1). In other words, bee wings use physics to pull (by Boyle’s Law), rather than fly, up. They are not breaking physics; they are designed to use it more creatively than many scientific minds could comprehend for a while.  

[1 Image, 1 quotation, 1 link, 250 words]

works cited

Felton, James. “The Strange Myth That Bees Shouldn’t Be Able To Fly According To Physics | IFLScience.” IFLScience, 26 May 2023, https://www.iflscience.com/the-strange-myth-that-bees-shouldnt-be-able-to-fly-according-to-physics-69107