I read somewhere its physically impossible for bumblebees to fly. If thats so, how do they, according to you?

Answer 1

Because bumblebees don't know physics.

Answer 2

Quote from Straightdope:
"According to an account at www.iop.org/Physics/News/0012i.1, the story was initially circulated in German technical universities in the 1930s. Supposedly during dinner a biologist asked an aerodynamics expert about insect flight. The aerodynamicist did a few calculations and found that, according to the accepted theory of the day, bumblebees didn't generate enough lift to fly. The biologist, delighted to have a chance to show up those arrogant SOBs in the hard sciences, promptly spread the story far and wide.

Once he sobered up, however, the aerodynamicist surely realized what the problem was--a faulty analogy between bees and conventional fixed-wing aircraft. Bees' wings are small relative to their bodies. If an airplane were built the same way, it'd never get off the ground. But bees aren't like airplanes, they're like helicopters. Their wings work on the same principle as helicopter blades--to be precise, "reverse-pitch semi-rotary helicopter blades," to quote one authority. A moving airfoil, whether it's a helicopter blade or a bee wing, generates a lot more lift than a stationary one.

The real challenge with bees wasn't figuring out the aerodynamics but the mechanics: specifically, how bees can move their wings so fast--roughly 200 beats per second, which is 10 or 20 times the firing rate of the nervous system. The trick apparently is that the bee's wing muscles (thorax muscles, actually) don't expand and contract so much as vibrate, like a rubber band. A nerve impulse comes along and twangs the muscle, much as you might pluck a guitar string, and it vibrates the wing up and down a few times until the next impulse comes along. Cecil is sliding over a few subtleties here, but nobody ever said science for the masses was pretty"

Answer 3

According to me, one of three things.

1. You don't know how to read.
2. You read gibberish.
3. You have a bad memory.

As HAL say, it boils down to human error. Your human error.

Anyways, nothing personal I'm just playing around. But seriously, do you really think that any intelligent person would suggest that something that happens is impossible????

Even if we didn't know how to explain it, scientists would have to be pretty ignorant to think that just because they couldn't explain something that it was impossible even though it was happening right in front of their face!! lol

I think what the person may have been trying to say, or the idea that you might be trying to articulate, is that nature is very subtle, very powerful, and very elegant. We often struggle to explain some of her everyday displays.

There are some basic things that scientists struggle to understand (like the atom) but they pretty much have that one wrapped up, and no intelligent person has thought that bees were capable of violating the laws of physics.

Answer 4

This is nothing but an urban legend originating in Germany. They can fly and science agrees with this.

Answer 5

it's obviously not IMPOSSIBLE, as they can - and do - fly. very well in fact.

i think it has been stated in scientific texts that, due to their body structure, relative wing size, metabolism, etc., it should be extremely difficult for them to fly as they do given their metamorphic evolution.

i think biologists are still puzzling this one out.

Answer 6

well if they fly then what u read is wrong

Answer 7

I guess nobody told them.

Answer 8

http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/060110_bee_fight.html

Answer 9

They are strong.

Answer 10

not a good article what you've read....