To understand how airplanes fly, you need to understand lift and Bernoulli’s principle. Lift is generated by the wings of an airplane, and Bernoulli’s principle creates pressure differences in the flow of air to provide the force that lifts the airplane.
As a child, you’ve probably watched airplanes fly in wonder. The sight of an airplane soaring high in the sky piqued our curiosity, and the sight of it flying freely through the air was a marvel to behold, but few of us ever stopped to think about why airplanes can fly. The secret is that airplanes receive an upward force from both wings. We call this force “lift,” and to understand it, we need to know something called Bernoulli’s principle.
So what is Bernoulli’s principle and why does it work? Before we can explain Bernoulli’s principle, we need to understand the concept of fluids. What is a fluid? In layman’s terms, fluids are a combination of gases and liquids. In more scientific terms, a fluid is a substance that changes its shape when a force is applied to the surface of an object in a direction parallel to the object’s surface. Bernoulli’s principle is not true for all fluids, but only for special fluids. The special fluid must fulfill three conditions. First, it must not have a sticky viscosity at all, like hot sauce, and second, it must not shrink in volume at all when subjected to a compressive force. Finally, these fluids must not generate vortices, such as swirls. In reality, there is no fluid in the world that perfectly satisfies these conditions.
Nevertheless, fluids that roughly fulfill these conditions behave according to Bernoulli’s principle. For example, fluids like air and water tend to behave according to this principle. This fact is similar to how the Earth rotates and revolves around the Sun, but the acceleration is so small that we don’t feel it. This is because even if a fluid is slightly viscous or compressible, it doesn’t have much effect on its behavior. In this way, we can understand that air and water are fluids that obey Bernoulli’s principle to some extent.
Now let’s take a look at Bernoulli’s principle in action. According to Bernoulli’s principle, a flowing fluid increases its velocity as the thickness of the path it travels narrows and, at the same time, its pressure decreases. Conversely, if the thickness of the path becomes wider, the fluid slows down and the pressure increases. This phenomenon can be easily seen in everyday life. For example, if you squirt water out of a rubber hose and make the end narrower, the water will come out faster, or if you try to block a running faucet with your palm, the water will come out stronger and wet the surroundings.
The reason we’re looking at these principles is to understand lift. The wings of an airplane use this Bernoulli principle to generate lift. When an airplane flies through the air, the air that passes over the top of the wing is faster than the air that passes under it. This is because the air on top of the wing follows a narrower path. This results in lower pressure at the top and relatively higher pressure at the bottom, and this pressure difference creates lift, the force that lifts the airplane upward.
The lift of an airplane using Bernoulli’s principle is one of the key reasons airplanes can fly. When an airplane flies under lift, it’s a marvel of science and engineering. By understanding how lift works, we can gain a deeper understanding of not only airplanes, but also wind turbines, winged drones, and even how birds fly. It’s a great example of how science can help us better understand the world.
Finally, to understand lift, we looked at the properties of fluids, explained their behavior with Bernoulli’s principle, and used airplane wings as an example of how lift is generated. The ability to understand various phenomena in the world through scientific principles plays an important role in helping us move towards a better future. The story goes that Solomon, King of Israel, wondered why birds flew, but in modern times, we’ve unlocked the secret through lift. So why not close your eyes, think back to that moment when you saw an airplane soar through the sky, and savor the mystery of lift?
