the "Bernoulli-ist" religious belief

[William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>]

On Wed, 18 Aug 1999, John Denker wrote:

> At 02:02 AM 8/18/99 -0700, William Beaty wrote:

> This thread started as a discussion of aircraft.  The analogies to
> deep-space rocketry are misleading.

Perhaps.  My main intention with these analogies is to illuminate the
nature of reaction-motors to myself, and to aid myself in connecting them
with the operation of airplane wings.  If airplane wings create a lifting
force by accelerating air downwards, then these reaction-motor analogies
can act as an exploration into the limits of the concepts, and they are
not necessarily an attempt to divert attention from the original argument.

In my case, I am "thinking out loud" while writing these messages, and as
I explore the deep-space rocketry concepts, I am gaining deeper
understanding of airplanes.  If others dislike my thought processes, this
will sadden me but it won't cause me to stop talking.  I know that some
small part of the audience does see the things that I am suddenly seeing
for the first time, and they know just how important they are for
understanding wings.

I am in the process of expanding my network of connections between
concepts which I had always assumed were separate.  My "light bulb" keeps
going on!  I see that if I "think aloud" as this occurs, perhaps I can
trigger the "aha" experience in other people.  If they detail all of their
thoughts in later conversations, then maybe they can trigger an "aha" for
me in return.


> > I believe that the controversy between the "Bernoulli-ist" and the
> > "Newtonist" explanations of flight definitely revolve around the above
> > concepts.
>
> This is crazy.  Bernoulli's principle is consistent with, and indeed a
> consequence of, Newton's laws.  How could there possibly be a conflict
> between them?

There is no conflict between the laws.  The conflict is between the groups
of people who choose to support certain limited aspects of those laws
while intentionally ignoring others.  The difference between the
"bernoulli-ist" and "newton-ist" positions is explained on my website,
right near the top of the page:

   http://www.amasci.com/wing/airfoil.html

I see that we also should add a third catagory to my webpage:
"circulation-ist."  A "Newton-ist" looks only at the downwash.  A
"Bernoulli-ist" looks only at the difference in velocities on the upper
and lower wing surfaces.  A "circulation-ist" looks only at the chordwise
circulation.  In the worst case, all three believe that only THEIR
viewpoint is the one true path, and the other viewpoints are deeply
flawed.  It's like the parable of the blind men and the elephant.  A
sighted person who sees the whole elephant wo;; only be saddened when one
blind man viciously lays into another about the TRUE nature of the
elephant.  Or it's like Swift's Lilliputians in "Gulliver's Travels".  The
rival armies of Lilliput are killing each other over what?  Over a debate
regarding the single best way to crack an egg during breakfast.  It's the
"big-endians"  versus the "little-endians"  Even when no religion is part
of the fight, whenever threats to long-held systems of belief are
involved, actual carnage is one expected result.  This shows us that our
long-held beliefs are the enemy, and the opponents who threaten to shatter
them are not.



If we ignore certain aspects of airplanes which we do not like, then in my
opinion we are violating the intellectual spirit of the physical laws.  It
smacks greatly of dishonesty.  In science we should explore viewpoints,
not fiercely cling to a single one while regarding any alternative
viewpoints as a terrible threat which must be countered at any cost.

For example, if one person cultivates an irrational DISLIKE for
circulation concepts, and also for the pressure-difference which appears
across the wings, and instead concentrates on the deflection of massive
air, then I choose to call that person by the name "Newtonist."  That
person will angrily insist that the circulation is only an irrelevant
mathematical trick and must be ignored.  They will assert over and over
again that the only important topic is the mass of the intercepted air and
the acceleration of the intercepted air.  To that person, the induced drag
and the wake-vortices attain an exaggerated importance.  Surely you know
of several staunch "Newton-ists" on the Usenet newsgroups.  And here.


Obviously theirs is a limited viewpoint.  Sticking with a single viewpoint
is almost like a "religious belief."  By becoming an unwavering
"Newtonist", this person has made themselves intentionally blind to vast
and interesting realms of aerodynamics.  Yet that person isn't even aware
of the problem.  The problem is blindness, and a "blind" person cannot
even see that he or she is "blind."  This person is totally certain that
the unexplored realms within the alternative viewpoint are unimportant and
irrelevant, and becomes angry when others keep raising the "irrelevant
subjects" of Circulation and Bernoulli's equation.  A sad case, no?

I strongly believe that a proper scientist should strive to be
"Newton-ists" and "Bernoulli-ists" at the same time.  And perhaps also
"circulation-ists"  and "particle-fluid-ists" and
"shock-wave-propagation-ists" to boot. To say nothing of temporarily being
devout followers of Prof. Klaus Weltner!   :)

In order to fight our tendency towards "religion", we should intentionally
adopt the belief-systems of our opponents.  This gives us perspective.
With enough of this type of perspective, our "religious views" about the
origin of the lifting force will be unable to dominate our minds with an
invisible net of prejudices and blindness.


((((((((((((((((((((( ( (  (   (    (O)    )   )  ) ) )))))))))))))))))))))
William J. Beaty                                  SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
billb@eskimo.com                                  http://www.amasci.com
EE/programmer/sci-exhibits          science projects, tesla, weird science
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