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Chemistry For Your Life

How do birds fly? And how is chemistry involved?!

3/12/202640 min

Birds fly all the time. We see it constantly. But how does it actually work? Is it just "Bernoulli’s" principle? Is the air pushing up? Are the wings pushing down? And what’s happening at the molecular level when a bird takes off? Let’s talk about feathers, airflow, collisions between air molecules, and why the way flight is usually explained might not actually be the whole story.

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Clips

We Teach Flight Wrong
Air Acts Like Oobleck
Bernoulli Isn’t The Whole Story
Compressing Air Creates Lift
Hand-Out-The-Window Demo

Transcript preview

First 90 seconds

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  4. Jam Robinson· Host0:15

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  5. Melissa Kleinschmidt· Host0:43

    Okay, Jam, have you ever seen a bird fly?

  6. Jam Robinson· Host0:49

    [lips smack] Uh, yes, probably many times.

  7. Melissa Kleinschmidt· Host0:53

    Well, have you ever wondered how they do it?

  8. Jam Robinson· Host0:56

    I kind of have. In fact, you know, w- I didn't ask you this, but one of my kids, my inquisitive oldest, did ask me about birds flying and feathers and stuff like that not that long ago.

  9. Melissa Kleinschmidt· Host1:07

    [gasps] Really? Oh.

  10. Jam Robinson· Host1:09

    Yeah, I couldn't, I couldn't really... I mean, I, I d- I didn't know. I didn't know.

  11. Melissa Kleinschmidt· Host1:13

    Well, you know, I've been auditing a bird class this semester, and we recently covered the physics of how birds fly.

  12. Jam Robinson· Host1:20

    Uh-huh.

  13. Melissa Kleinschmidt· Host1:21

    And I was immediately so excited to share about this on the podcast. Are you ready to hear about it?

  14. Jam Robinson· Host1:26

    I'd love to hear about it, yes. Let's do it.

  15. Melissa Kleinschmidt· Host1:28

    All right.

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