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"longer wings" defeats "reaction motor"???

On Wed, 18 Aug 1999, John Denker wrote:


Once upon a time somebody asserted that the moon was made of green cheese,
and set forth a proof, the first N-1 steps of which consisted of deriving
the Pythagorean theorem. The proof ended thusly:
N-1) And therefore a^2 + b^2 = c^2
N) So the moon is made of green cheese, QED.



As usual, we have a major miscommunication. In the message below, I was
not attempting to prove that wings are reaction engines. Instead I was
attempting to defeat your arguement that they are not! This doesn't seem
at all confusing to me. Here's the recent history from my viewpoint:

Long ago I become convinced that wings create lift entirely by
reaction. They fling air downwards and are lifted as a consequence.
Flight requires energy because some finite amount of air must be
accelerated downwards.

I hear you say that this cannot be true. After all, we can increase
the length of the wings as desired, and if the weight of the aircraft
is not increased, the energy consumption goes down as a consequence.
Make the wings arbitrarily long, and the energy becomes arbitrarily
small. Therefor wings do not resemble an energy-consuming reaction
motor.

In the last message I demonstrate that "machine-gun powered rockets"
follow a similar rule as the wings. Add more guns (without increasing
the weight of the craft), and the energy required for continuous
hovering goes down. Add arbitrarily many machine guns, and the energy
requirements become arbitrarily small. In this fashion a machine-gun
flying machine with increasing number of guns acts like a wing with
increasing length. Increase the deflected mass while keeping the
thrust and the momentum-change the same, and you do less work.

You now say that my reasoning does not support my "conclusion." Yet
I made no conclusion, instead I defeated the "wing-length" arguement
that you made against my "wing-reaction" explanation of lift.


Yes, it is very true that a longer wing requires less per second. It is
also true that a reaction-motor craft with more machine guns requires less
energy per second. In theory, reaction motors do not need to do work in
order to hover against gravity. Same as wings.


So where are we now? Right back where we started. However, if you want
to use the "longer wings" arguement in the future, then there is a
problem. It has been damaged in the fight, and can no longer serve as a
useful debating weapon except when you face an opponent who has not yet
discovered this counterargument.


Therefor, I argue that wings *ARE* reaction engines

... which simply does not follow from the derivation. Adding details to
the derivation won't help.

You are correct. My argument does not support the reaction-engine
hypothesis, instead it counters your wing-length argument. In the past I
argued that wings are reaction engines. Because your wing-length argument
obviously is without merit, I see no need to cease my arguments that
wings produce a lifting force entirely by reacting against air and
producing downwash as a consequence.

I feel free to continue as before... but suppose this was not the case?
Suppose that the "wing length" argument *DID* prove that wings cannot be
reaction engines. If this were the case, then my position would become
untenable, and you would be the winner in this debate.




You need to learn to *critique* the theories you invent.

That's a big part of why I'm here. Opponents will find all the flaws that
I simply cannot see. As long as I can stick to the humble "bending over
backwards honesty" that science requires, I'm certain I will benefit from
the help that phys-L subscribers give in criticizing my propositions.
Only if I close my ears to criticism will I court disaster.


However, where favorite theories are concerned, there are flaws and then
there are FLAWS. Some flaws are tiny and only visible to nit-pickers.
Other flaws require that changes be made. Still others, when finally
exposed, can stab a concept in its very heart and kill it dead.



Coming up with
new theories is fun. And it's easy. The hard part is coming up with
new theories that stand up to scrutiny.


In my opinion, the tough part is coming up with theories which link
together things which appeared to be totally separate, or which make some
seemingly-trivial and easily-dismissed phenomena suddenly take on new
importance and great meaning. Often the resulting "aha" experience is
very worthwhile, even when a new theory remains yet untested, and even
when its range of application is very limited.


And just so nobody becomes distracted by the above... I believe that I
have countered John's wing-length argument described described in this
message. Although an infinite-wing aircraft of finite weight uses no
energy in order to remain aloft, that does not prove that its wings are
not reaction motors, since and infinite number of machinegun reaction
motors attached to a craft of finite weight can also fly forever without
doing any work.


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William J. Beaty SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
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