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Why Bumble Bees Can't Fly
One of the favourite debates on web discussion forums is – "why film is or is not sharper then digital". Experienced photographers know through the evidence of their own eyes that, other things being equal – same lens, similar ISO, etc; in real-world photographs digital is incontrovertibly sharper than film. Yet the debates continue.
This is reminiscent of the urban myth that bumble bees can't fly. Their wings are far too small to generate enough lift given their weight. A lift to weight ratio thing. (Sound familiar?)
And for those that are interested, this apparently has something to do with the way bees use their wings and the lift generated by vortices that swirl behind the moving wing edges. According to those knowledgeable about insect flight aerodynamics the complexities include "continuously changing angles of attack, interactions of opposite wings at the top of the stroke, issues of how many chord lengths of travel are neede...

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Michael Reichmann is the founder of the Luminous Landscape. Michael passed away in May 2016. Since its inception in 1999 LuLa has become the world's largest site devoted to the art, craft, and technology of photography. Each month more than one million people from every country on the globe visit LuLa.
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