- Under Wonder - Dogmas

Convenient, to know so much. Some us have half a library in our head. Together we have all the knowledge of mankind in our head and luckily as well on paper.

But what if there is something incorrect? Just because there was someone who formulated a good story that seemed to be correct. We took that over, spread it and documented it. Including the incorrect information.

The described dogmas are not made up by myself. I collected them elsewhere: at the site of NASA, the quizmaster of a scientific TV quiz and someone else on TV.

The dogma of the wing

The shape of a wing (the wing of an airplane e.g.) gives an upward force the moment the wing goes in the air. The general accepted explanation of this phenomenon is that the air which flows above is expanded more than the air which flows below and therefore is thinner and gets lower pressure. Therefore there is an upward force (=lift).

The fact that this explanation is incorrect is easy to reason about because the air which passes above will be squeezed more than the air which passes below the wing. The air which passes above will therefore get a higher pressure. This causes a contradicting force!

The correct explanation, I thought, of this phenomenon is that the air stream which passes above partially points downwards en thus has a component focused downwards.

Until I entered the site of NASA en read that the real explanation is that when the stream of air manages to change directions, you get a grip on the air.

In nature you can see too that birds have a hollow wing, this means that they have a wing that is hollow on the downside. This causes two streams of air that provide a force.

There is a version of this dogma in which it is mentioned that when two streams of air pass each other and one of these streams has a higher speed, the stream with the highest speed will always have the lowest pressure. This is based I think on meteology and this is not applicable to this appearance. The air above the wing has indeed a higher speed but is not in direct contact with the air passing below the wing.

The dogma of the bicycle

When you hold a bicycle still it will fall over. When you ride on it, it will not fall over (if everything goes well).

A general accepted explanation for this would be that when the wheels turn they are kept up by the gyroscopical movement. You don’t want to think about what would happen when you fixate the steering wheel of the bike. This would mean you would definitely fall over. With this the explanation is incorrect. Just imagine, if there would be a bike made with weightless wheels you would still be able to ride on it.

The actual explanation is that you never ride your bike in a straight line. You constantly make small curves. You can see this most clearly on the track which a bike makes in the snow: the track is always wavering. At the moment you make a curve this causes a force which keeps the bike up. This is the correct explanation of the phenomenon which keeps the bike standing up.

Imagine: you riding your bike, you fall to the left, you steer to the left so you enter a curve to the left. Then there is centrifugal force to the right which puts you straight up again.

The force of electricity

When you press enter your message is sent to the other side of the world. The speed in which this is done is very high.

In the common accepted saying it travels with the speed of light. Everyone know that the basis of electricity is the electron. These electrons don’t shot with the speed of light through the cables. This would cause explosions.

The truth is that electrons transmit power to each other. There is thus a speed of reaction in which electrons transmit power. If you let a light burn on a battery and the electricity cord is one meter then it takes in that order of ? of a day before the electron of the battery goes to the lamp and back to the battery.