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Airspeed Velocity Of An Unladen Swallow
An anonymous reader writes "Finally, the question is answered: What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow? A designer with too much time on his hands uses his new method for graphically representing Strouhal numbers to clarify a truly pressing question for all armchair zoologists (and a few Monty Python fans)."
I hate to say it, but this is one of those things like the explanation of where the immortals in Highlander came from -- we didn't actually want to know.
dmiessler.com -- grep understanding knowledge
NONE! ... Shall pass...
.: Max Romantschuk
A 54-year survey of 26,285 European Swallows captured and released by the Avian Demography Unit of the University of Capetown finds that the average adult European swallow has a wing length of 12.2 cm and a body mass of 20.3 grams.
54 years? That's amazing, i think I could copy that research with a shotgun, a measuring tool and a free sunday afternoon.
... looks like someone's pushing for recognition :-)
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Yes, finally someone had the balls to answer this question that has been wracking the minds of scientists for ages!
Someone get this man a nobel.
just so you know
In reality they have to bid and win for the money to do such things, against stiff competition. Just think of the talent, skill and dedication that went into convincing a biscuit manufacturer to fund such research. Can you imagine standing up in front of a review board and pitching that? The man's a genius.
I'm guessing that this swallow work was a personal project, but this also was a work of genius. After all, most of their research will go into a dry and dusty journal. Nobody will read it, nobody will notice. However this will be quoted for as long as some smartarse quotes Monty Python. The publicity and the (indirect) fame is well worth the small effort involved.
Getting your name known, and getting contacts and work as a result, is as much a part of science today as actually discovering new knowledge. This is just marketing, but without the dodgy haircuts and inflated salaries.
The relevant pieces in the script :
A swallow carrying a coconut? and The Bridge of Death
siener's youtube channel
To imply similarity, make the graph larger than it needs to be. Then all of your points will fall in a narrow range and appear closer together.
For this and other presentation crocks, read How to Lie with Charts, and its fore-runners, How to Lie with Statistics and How to Lie with Maps.
But what is your favourite colour?
Blue
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
For his next article, can he tell us if the parrot is dead?
Now that we finally know the right question to match the ultimate answer, I suppose the universe can end.
;-)
Somehow it does not surprise me that Douglas Adams and the Monty Python crew are the secret masters of the universe.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
This is so cool. Now, the next time we put Holy Grail in the DVD player, I can watch the scene and be like,
"Actually, that's not correct."
If there were any chicks at these MP parties, I am sure it would go over well.
dmiessler.com -- grep understanding knowledge
Perhaps you are able to sit in your chair at home and, using purely a priori reasoning, arrive at conclusions that others must use empirical investigation to achieve. And perhaps, once the scientists have arrived at those answers through painstaking quantitative research (as in the case of the authors of the Nature article), you enjoy pointing out that you reasoned your way there without the messiness of actual research. Fair enough.
But even if the discovery made wasn't surprising to you, it was interesting enough to make it into Nature. And the author of the style.org article on Strouhal numbers was clearly concerned not so much with the discovery as with the graphical representation of the information discovered. He is, after all, a designer.
In other words, you may benefit from spending a little more time trying to figure out what people are doing, and a little less time trying to show everyone how far ahead of them you are.
11 m/s is approximately 21 knots. So the combined airspeed of two European swallows is... (drumroll) 42 knots.
The site has now been mirrored by karma whores on numerous different hosts at great expense and at the last minute.
The article ends with an answer of roughly 11 meter per second. Given some a priori reasoning about the universality of the metric system and the Answer, we can deduce that the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow quite likely is a bit higher, namely 11 2/3 meter per second. This comfortably equates to 42 kilometers per hour, and the circle is closed.
"Look my liege! Charts describing Strouhal numbers and swallows!"' s only a model."
*trumpets*
"Charts!"
"Charts!"
"It
"Shhh!"
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
GUARD #1: Where'd you get the coconut?
ARTHUR: We found them.
GUARD #1: Found them? In Mercea? The coconut's tropical!
ARTHUR: What do you mean?
GUARD #1: Well, this is a temperate zone.
ARTHUR: The swallow may fly south with the sun or the house martin or the plumber may seek warmer climes in winter yet these are not strangers to our land.
GUARD #1: Are you suggesting coconuts are migratory?
ARTHUR: Not at all, they could be carried.
GUARD #1: What -- a swallow carrying a coconut?
ARTHUR: It could grip it by the husk!
GUARD #1: It's not a question of where he grips it! It's a simple question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a 1 pound coconut.
ARTHUR: Well, it doesn't matter. Will you go and tell your master that Arthur from the Court of Camelot is here.
GUARD #1: Listen, in order to maintain air-speed velocity, a swallow needs to beat its wings 43 times every second, right?
ARTHUR: Please!
GUARD #1: Am I right?
ARTHUR: I'm not interested!
GUARD #2: It could be carried by an African swallow!
GUARD #1: Oh, yeah, an African swallow maybe, but not a European swallow, that's my point.
GUARD #2: Oh, yeah, I agree with that...
ARTHUR: Will you ask your master if he wants to join my court at Camelot?!
GUARD #1: But then of course African swallows are not migratory.
GUARD #2: Oh, yeah...
GUARD #1: So they couldn't bring a coconut back anyway...
GUARD #2: Wait a minute -- supposing two swallows carried it together?
GUARD #1: No, they'd have to have it on a line.
GUARD #2: Well, simple! They'd just use a standard creeper!
GUARD #1: What, held under the dorsal guiding feathers?
GUARD #2: Well, why not?
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
How can sheep's bladders be used to prevent earthquakes?
Just consider the facts:
B: What causes earthquakes?
A: Sudden slippage along a fault line
B: Ah, but WHY does that cause earthquakes?
A: Because it's a lot of ground moving?
B: No, try again.
A: Because it doesn't slip smoothly?
B: Yes, that's right. So...logically...
A: We could prevent it if we got it to slip smoothly?
B: And what do you slip on all of the time?
A: Sheep urine?
B: Absolutely. And where do you find sheep urine?
A: Sheep bladders.
B: Therefore...
A: If we stick sheep bladders into a fault line, it'll prevent earthquakes!
A: Thank you, Bedevere. Good insight.
B: My pleasure, Oh King.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!