[lbo-talk] On the Flight of the Bumble Bee , was Lou Proyect responds...

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Thu Feb 9 08:14:53 PST 2012


Comic Interlude

"Or that wonderful little joke that I have posted before: "Scientists have proven beyond doubt that the bumblebee does not have the necessary wingspan to fly. The bumblebee does not know this and keeps flying anyway.". -ravi

----------

I first encountered d this anecdote in the early 1940s in the pages of the Reader's Digest, and it has been endlessly repeated since then. Unfortunately, if I remember correctly, its premise (that aerodynamics failed to explain the flight of the bumblebee) has also, I think, been debunked. No doubt science often does err in this way; the flight of the bumblebee just happens NOT to be an actual illustration of such error.

Carrol



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list