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The hummingbird glass box problems

The hummingbird glass box problems

Posers and Puzzles

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If the bird is in an air tight box would it still be able to beat its wings or would the pressure be too much for the birds wing muscles so that it would it will not be able to displace any air around it as the air has no where to go? Or would this depend on the size of the box?
Not brill with physics and just curious to this.

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Originally posted by Stork69
If the bird is in an air tight box would it still be able to beat its wings or would the pressure be too much for the birds wing muscles so that it would it will not be able to displace any air around it as the air has no where to go? Or would this depend on the size of the box?
Not brill with physics and just curious to this.
…If the bird is in an air tight box would it still be able to beat its wings or would the pressure be too much for the birds wing muscles so that it would it will not be able to displace any air around it as the air has no where to go? ....

“…air has no where to go? .... “ ? -what is stopping the air current that is pushed down by the down-movement of the wing from circulating back up around the sides within the box to above the bird and then be push back down again by the down-movement of the wing etc in a continues circling motion?
-If my reasoning it correct here, the effects of air friction within the box that restricts how easily the air current moves back up again would actually help to make that the average air pressure below the birds wing be even higher than above its wing thus giving it even more lift so, if anything, being constrained in the box should make it even easier for it to hover! ( -albeit I think only slightly so) -and the smaller the box the better!

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what would happen if it was a vacuum (the bird has a air tank) would the bird still be able to move freely then?

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Originally posted by Stork69
what would happen if it was a vacuum (the bird has a air tank) would the bird still be able to move freely then?
You mean with its wings beating down not on air but on literally nothing? -I would say that the bird would drop like a stone -it wouldn’t be able to fly in a vacuum because its flapping wings wouldn’t be exerting any force onto anything external (including air). In a vacuum, the best it could do it just to jump up and down (unless it cheats by having some rocket boosters).

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[...] (unless it cheats by having some rocket boosters).
a hummingbird in a glass box with vacuum and an air tank...
DOES NOT CHEAT!
Or have you ever heard of one?

Ok, if Schrödinger's cat is in the same box, it probably would
;-)

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A humming bird doesn't simply flap up and down, it will flap in a way that the air flow across the top of the wings will be faster than across the bottom. Therefore any downward force on the scales will be minimal. How exactly it will affect the scales I have no idea, nor how the sealed box will affect anything. If you get a piece of paper and hold it to your mouth and blow over the top of it, it will rise up. How much downward force is being created? Not much, if any.

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Originally posted by afx
a hummingbird in a glass box with vacuum and an air tank...
DOES NOT CHEAT!
I apologise for the slander 😛

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Originally posted by MilkyJoe
A humming bird doesn't simply flap up and down, it will flap in a way that the air flow across the top of the wings will be faster than across the bottom. Therefore any downward force on the scales will be minimal. How exactly it will affect the scales I have no idea, nor how the sealed box will affect anything. If you get a piece of paper and hold it to yo ...[text shortened]... ver the top of it, it will rise up. How much downward force is being created? Not much, if any.
…How exactly it will affect the scales I have no idea, nor how the sealed box will affect anything. ..…

If you want to know, AThousandYoung explained it pretty well in his first post on page 1 of this thread.

…If you get a piece of paper and hold it to your mouth and blow over the top of it, it will rise up. How much downward force is being created? Not much, if any...…

But there must be some downward force and that downward force must be exactly equal to the weight of the sheet of paper (assuming that the paper is not accelerating up or down).

With every force there is an equal but opposite force (opposite in direction that is) and for the weight of a sheet of paper to be suspended statically in the air there has to be an upward force created that it exactly equal to the weight of the sheet of paper and the downward force of the weight of the paper has to be somehow transferred down all the way to the ground else it wouldn’t quite make sense according to Newtonian physics.

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Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
[b]…If the bird is in an air tight box would it still be able to beat its wings or would the pressure be too much for the birds wing muscles so that it would it will not be able to displace any air around it as the air has no where to go? ....

“…air has no where to go? .... “ ? -what is stopping the air current that is pushed down by the down ...[text shortened]... easier for it to hover! ( -albeit I think only slightly so) -and the smaller the box the better![/b]
So if you made the box zero size, the bird should be able to hover without flapping its wings at all🙂

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Originally posted by sonhouse
So if you made the box zero size, the bird should be able to hover without flapping its wings at all🙂
When I said “the smaller the box the better”, this assumes the box to always have enough space in it to contain the bird and for the bird to flap its wings 🙂

If the box has zero size then the bird inside would be a singularity 😛

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