Would the plane take off?
Imagine a 747, sitting on a conveyor belt, as wide and long as a runway. The conveyor belt is designed to exactly match the speed of the wheels, moving in the opposite direction. Like an enormous treadmill. (Side question - do you ever think your life is like one big treadmill? Striving, working, grinding but not getting anywhere?) Ok - back to the 747 and the runway treadmill, Can the plane take off?
I challenge you – think about the scenario a bit. What is your answer?
I recently saw this scenario posted on LinkedIn with a long list of geeks answering with very and varied scientific and mathematical rationale, with dissenting positions. All answers sounding very reasoned and compelling – but obviously, they can’t all be right if opposing. My answer – is NO, the plane can not take off. Why? One word – a name really – Bernoulli.
NASA.gov addresses LIFT, using the Bernoulli Principle, “LIFT is achieved in part by the design of an airplane’s wing. Air moves more quickly over the curved upper surface of the wing than it does under the wing, which has a flatter surface. The faster moving air produces less pressure than the slower moving air, causing the wing to LIFT toward the area of low pressure.” Make sense? Clear as mud?
Per NASA, LIFT is caused by air movement. If the plane is moving at same rate as the conveyor belt (in the opposite direction), there is no forward motion, thus no air movement over the wing. I’m sure my take is overly simplified, and likely wrong, but its my position and I’m sticking with it!
One aspect of the Bernoulli principle that still baffles me is that as air approaches the leading edge of the wing, some air goes over the wing’s top following a longer path, while some air takes the short cut under the wing – only to find out that the top-going air meets up with the bottom-going air at the back end of the wing. This fact conjures up different analogies in my mind:
· Zipping past a pokey driver, only to meet up again at the next red light
· Aesop’s famous Tortoise and Hare fable
· Vince Lombardi’s, “Life’s battles don’t always go to the stronger or faster man. But sooner or later, the man who wins is the man who thinks he can.”
Pondering the speed of air o’er or under the wing usually brings me to Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken. Per prepscholar.com, “Frost’s poem posits that small choices we make each and every day have big impacts on our lives. Each decision we make sets us upon a path that we may not understand the importance of until much, much later…” Picture it, you’re standing in the middle of a “yellow wood” at a point where two roads break away – you cannot go both directions. “(you have) to choose one direction to go down, because like life, making a decision often means that other doors are subsequently shut for you…” “Just like in life, each path leads to another path, and then another. In other words, the decisions we make in the moment add up and influence where we end up in life – and we don’t really get a redo.” Prepscholar ends their poem summary with, “Once time passes and we’ve journeyed down our path a little further, we can look back in the past and see which choices have shaped us the most. And oftentimes, those choices aren’t the ones we think are most important in the moment. The clarity and wisdom of hindsight allows us to realize that doing something like taking the path “less traveled by” has impacted our lives immensely.”
I leave you with 2 thoughts:
Like air approaching the wing – we have a choice – a path to follow – a path of decisions that will ultimately shape our lives. Let’s decide wisely!
Like air, whether it takes the longer yet faster path or shorter and slower path, comes to the end of the wing – our journey over or under the wing of life will eventually end, too. Let’s leave this place with no regrets!