A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.
You think that's crazy? The ship that blocked the Suez Canal, the Ever Given, has a ship displacement (how much water is displaced when it sits in the ocean) of 265,000 Tons.
That's 240 million kilograms.
And that shit just floats on fucking water maaaaan...
Since when 1000kg is not equal to one tonne?
There are tons of tons, believe it or not.
There's the short ton (2000lbs), long ton (2240 lbs), and tonne (1000kgs) which are all measure weight. However there's also the shipping/freight/ocean ton which is a measure of volume (which is also different in the US and UK), and the register ton.
However I did make a mistake. The wikipedia page I was reading said the weight in t and long tons. I made the mistake of assuming they meant short tons - in reality when measuring displacement for a ship, tonnes are used (which is pretty sensible, considering you're displacing water and a liter of water to a kilogram of water have a pretty easy conversion formula formula...)
I see, the common "Americans will use anything but SI", but in this case it's also the Brits lol
Thanks for explanation
This guy tons.
Ton (imperial) is 2000lb vs tonne (metric)
Don't get them going about their crazy units!
Dafuq is this!? Stress testing?
No, every once in a while the planes need to stretch out. They get tired from being so stiff. This helps their joints later in their life span.
Basically. The wings have to be able to bend that much so they don’t break off in strong winds or hard maneuvers.
Airplane engines have deceptively high thrust, imagine each one as a rocket and it'll start to make sense. The a380 (the big double decker) each engine produces around 350KN. When that thrust is applied to an 80kg human they'll experience almost 450Gs of force
In an extreme sense, imagine putting a little rocket engine on a paper airplane which will represent a high thrust to weight ratio
Your last description is essentially the idea behind the F-117a. That thing ~~isn't~~ wasn't flying, ~~it's~~ it was achieving escape velocity.
it works because we believe in it. if everyone would lose faith in airplanes, they'd drop out of the sky.
Can I just lose faith in the private jets?
And will it fly higher if we have the Faith of the Heart?
I hate that everybody's like, it's not that big a deal.
We only started doing it 124 years ago! Prior to that it was a very big deal indeed.
Everyone's so fucking smart these days, there's no room for a sense of wonder. It's like being blasé and knowledgeable is cool. It's really not.
You keep flying with your beautiful sense of wonder, Buttflapper!
I don't need ignorance to feel wonder. I think things are cooler when I can marvel at the complex mechanics behind it all.
True. But I wasn't arguing that.
Some lady told me she read Atlas Shrugged while in the hospital for a long stay, kept alive by equipment she neither invented nor paid for. How oblivious people can be when we are all just barely something more than monkeys? Some of us manage to be passably unoblivious and I think that's what makes us human; the potential to be more rational than a monkey. It's no guarantee, though, as you so noted. You know there was a caveperson who just learned about fire and still went around and acted like he invented it straight up to the caveperson that did invent it. Monkey brain stuff.
I'm a mechanical engineer and have a general understanding of how wings work. I've flown many times. That shit still feels like magic to me.
I was most impressed by the sheer amount of power those engines put out when you finally take off. The acceleration gave me a boost of adrenaline when I flew for the first time (it was a Southwest Boeing 737)
The 777 is 375-ish tons, and the A380 is 630-ish tons.
Wait until you find out about electricity! 🤯
Computers is teachibg rocks to think
We grow flawless crystals, slice them into perfect disks, engrave billions of arcane runes onto them with magical potions and rays of light, animate them with lightning, and make them do our bidding.
And then we give them an "intelligence" that can't even count the Rs in strawberry...
And telephones! Even en old-school analogue phone is pretty amazing how sound becomes an electrical signal and then is converted back to sound at the other end.
Modern digital phones are just pure magic compared to analogue phones.
I used to think so until I realised that air and water are both fluids, except air is thinner.
To be clear to anyone with minds being blown: air is gas and gas is a type of fluid. Water is liquid and liquid is also a type of fluid.
... gas is a type of fluid.
that goes a long way in explaining some of those farts.
The wings are crazy ! They look way too flimsy for what they do.
Next time you see an airplane, imagine a crane picking it up by the wings, around the middle of the wing length, and then start shaking it up.
It does not look like the wing will be able to hold that much weight.
I still look up whenever u hear a plane fly over. Heavier than air travel is treated way to casually
Consider the amount of air its wings must displace in order to stay aloft. An equal quantity of mass at least. It's passing through that air and, partly pushing it down, but also partially scraping it thin over the bowed top surface of the wing (the Bernoulli principle) which creates a pressure differential that lifts the wing, pulling it upward through suction, and thus the plane. That's why the plane must go fast to fly, and why it "stalls" and falls if it isn't moving through enough air. It's also how turbulence affects a plane. Differences in air pressure mean that in pockets of low pressure there isn't as much mass being displaced by the wings, not enough lift so it falls.
Now, it's quite likely that my layman's comprehension of this is flawed. But I'm sure it's entirely possible that someone will correct me soon :3
To be pedantic: It’s not necessarily an equal amount of mass, it just has to accelerate (this includes deceleration which is acceleration opposing a component of a vector of travel) any amount of mass along and opposite to the vector of the plane’s acceleration due to gravity so long as the amount of mass (and the averaged amount of that mass’ acceleration in the aforementioned direction i.e. force) is in ratio with the planes mass and it’s acceleration due to gravity.
There’s a lot of other pedantic caveats but they’d make this comment far too long. The main thing I want to convey is that mass doesn’t necessarily matter but rather force (m*v) and also that the “suction” and thereby acceleration that a plane’s airfoil experiences is also it causing an acceleration on the air around it by decelerating it along the path that it wants to flow. It all depends on frame of reference.
I suck at explaining things, this video might do a better job at getting the idea across.
I find it equally neat how displacement allows a 100,000 ton ship to float.
As I'm sure most know, planes fly because of the angle of their wings and airframe shape (also known as an airfoil). As moving air flows over the wing it creates downward pressure, which, as a result of Newton's 3rd law (reaction to a force), allows moving air below to create lift. And upsy daisy she goes.
Science.
That lift explanation is innacurate/incomplete. While there may be some equal and opposite forces depending on the angle of attack, the primary reason for lift is due to Bernoulli's Principle. Airfoils have a rounded upper surface with a longer path for air to take, relative to the underside. This requires air to move at a higher velocity over the top, and since A1 x V1 x P1 = A2 x V2 x P2, pressure over the airfoil decreases. It is this pressure differential that creates lift.
In regards to aircraft, Newton's third law of motion applies to thrust from a propeller or jet engine.
"It's just always exciting! That amazing moment when twelve tonnes of metal leaves the earth... and no-one knows why!"
"Yes, we do."
"Yeah, but, you know, not really. I mean, we know you need wings, and engines, and a sticky-up bit on the end for some reason, but it's not like we actually know why a plane stays in the air."
"No. No, Arthur, we really do! We- we do, we do know that!"
It’s magical, right? It’s what got me interested in aviation - the physics, the science, the engineering to make it work. And we’ve gotten so good at it, air travel is now available to most people, it’s safe and convenient.
I’ve flown exactly three times in my life: a hot air balloon, a helicopter and a DC3. Each was magical in its own way. I’ve also done a fair bit of plane spotting. Seeing an Airbus A380 landing right in front of you is amazing. It really is the size of a large apartment block with wings. Truly awe inspiring.
Aviation is fucking awesome!
An a380 is so big when it takes off it looks like it's moving slow, just kind of hanging in the air