How do you explain something that defies the laws of Physics?

Question

How can a Bumble Bee fly if it defies all known scientific laws?

This is one that even graduates of MIT cannot answer!

I wonder how long it will take the "Scientific World" to come up with an actual equation that explains how a Bumble Bee can fly. It is true, there have been literally millions of dollars poured into that question and to this date and time, it has not been totally solved on paper.

For those os us that believe in God, all I can say is this "God really has a sense of humor when it comes to the Bumble Bee"!

Answer 1

Insect flight is fiendishly complex (it's non-laminar air flow, for one thing) but is increasingly well understood. There is nothihg about insect flight that defies the laws of physics - or, more properly, that isn't accurately described by well understood physical laws.

Answer 2

It is a myth that bumblebees shouldn't be able to fly... that they can't fly, well, that's a fallacy since you can watch them fly with your own eyes. Interesting stories behind the myth though.

Since the myth became propogated by the media and general public with no facts to support it, for the longest time people just couldn't understand how these big fat aerodynamically impaired insects could get off the ground using such proportionally itty-bitty wings. Finally, scientists realized that there was much more involved, and in the past few years much headway has been made in understanding the bumblebee flight phenomenon. It has something to do with the way they use their wings and the lift generated by vortices that swirl behind the moving wing edges.

Here is a neat link abount a researcher who utilized lasers to study bee flight: http://physicsweb.org/article/news/5/10/9

An interesting thread discussing the origin of the myth: http://www.math.niu.edu/~rusin/known-math/98/bees

Brief description of insect flight and how lift helps them fly: http://www.howstuffworks.com/news-item223.htm

Answer 3

how does it defy phishics? add more details, I never thought you could do that(defy physics)