For real though, aerodynamics and fluid dynamics are closely related. See also airships, lighter than air, sailing in the sky with propellers and rudders.
this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2023
50 points (83.8% liked)
Showerthoughts
29247 readers
986 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- Posts must be original/unique
- Be good to others - no bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Watched this Kurzgesagt recently, a couple minutes in he basically explains how air acts “thicker” for smaller creatures like insects. They effectively do swim through the air!
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/FfWtIaDtfYk
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Crabs think fish are flying but fish think birds are flying. What do crabs think birds are doing extra flying?
Crabs don't think about anything other than how to eat the thing that just touched them
Maybe I am a crab.
This is what the penguins have been telling us for centuries.
You have a point. Drowning to the bottom is just falling.
Slowly
Hmm, I guess, sort of... The details in animal locomotion are really interesting and the gist of it is that there are different kinds of "swimming" and different kinds of "flying" and while some of these share similar mechanics, not all do.
As a quick example, there are some fish that power their swimming mostly with drag. With this kind of swimming they push their fins backwards on the power stroke, propelling themselves forwards by generating a lot of drag in the water. Then they need to retract their fins, and to minimize drag they might collapse the fin so it has a small area and produces less backwards thrust.
A duck's foot works the same way. When pushing back the foot is splayed out, allowing the webbing to maximize drag. When retracting the foot it collapses down, to minimize drag. This kind of swimming is mechanically different from most forms of flying.
Contrast this with the fins of sharks that lay flat and have a single leading edge that cuts through the water. These fins work by creating lift and don't get pushed and pulled through the water. This is also how penguin wings work and why it's often said they "fly" through the water. So this kind of swimming is very much like flying.
In the air, wings generally need to generate lift to keep the animal airborne, while this isn't strictly necessary under water. Also water is very dense, so many animals generate a good deal of thrust by undulating their bodies and rear fins. This isn't generally very effective in air.
Here's a good Wikipedia article about this kind of stuff: