Lift (force) - Description of Lift On An Airfoil

Description of Lift On An Airfoil

There are several ways to explain how an airfoil generates lift. Some are more complicated or more mathematically rigorous than others; some have been shown to be incorrect. For example, there are explanations based directly on Newton’s laws of motion and explanations based on Bernoulli’s principle. Either can be used to explain lift. This article will start with the simplest explanation; more complicated and alternative explanations will follow.

Read more about this topic:  Lift (force)

Famous quotes containing the words description of, description and/or lift:

    “Everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of the theory-building process, and simultaneously real from the standpoint of the theory that is being built. Nor let us look down on the standpoint of the theory as make-believe; for we can never do better than occupy the standpoint of some theory or other, the best we can muster at the time.”
    —Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)

    “The great object in life is Sensation—to feel that we exist, even though in pain; it is this “craving void” which drives us to gaming, to battle, to travel, to intemperate but keenly felt pursuits of every description whose principal attraction is the agitation inseparable from their accomplishment.”
    —George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)

    “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my
    help.”
    —Bible: Hebrew Psalm CXXI (l. CXXI, 1)