Le Chaud Lapin writes:
In electrical engineering, we have our own set of fundamental
principles. The "terminal" set of primitives governing electronics
(electrostatics and electrodynamics) is Maxwells Equations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell_equation. [Ironically, during
his lifetime, Maxwell was also someone who was a leading expert on
aerodynamics. The notions of gradients, the Laplacian, and scalar
potentials have strong parallels in both fields.] In EE, we have out
own myths, like power lines causing brain cancer, but when they arise,
the experts work hard to show indisputable evidence, verifiable,
rigorous evidence to the contrary, to nip the non-sense in the bud.
We do still have areas of disputes, like what causes shot noise in
circuits [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_noise], but on the bread-
and-butter basics, you won't find a college-leve textbook speaking
untruth. So naturally I am extremely surprised to see this happening
in aerodynamics. You are, after all, the rocket scientists.
Perhaps you have seen EE from the inside and aerodynamics from the outside.
They may resemble each other far more than you realize. Remember how well
Tesla was received.
2. NASA says it's wrong. From Jim Logajan: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/bernnew.html
The question, though, is who exactly is "NASA"? The organization didn't write
the text (which, by the way, is an explanation for schoolkids); a human being
did. Is an individual human being as reliably correct as all of NASA? This
is another illustration of the dangers of credentialism.
I'll be the first to admit that i don't have the capacity to do so at
this moment, but imagine that that one shape of the leading edge is
not appropriate for all speeds of the aircraft. For a given set of
context variables like density, temperature, pressure, angle-of-
attack, airspeed, what-the-plane-was-doing-20-milliseconds-ago,
turbulences...wind, etc...there is an optimal shape for that leading
edge, depending on what you are trying to do. It would be quite wild
if someone were to design a wing that could morph, dynamically by
control of a computer, into an instaneously-optimal shape.
Most of the adjustments in wing shape are intended to reduce drag or raise the
critical angle of attack. Otherwise a flat board would suffice. The very
common misconception is that the curve of the wing somehow is responsible for
the lift. It's not, of course. Only the angle of attack is responsible for
the lift.
The weird thing is that the intuitive impression one has of a wing's function
is essentially correct. It looks like something that would point air down as
it passes, and that's exactly what it does. Only the details of how it does
it are hard to figure out and understand. Fortunately, it works extremely
well even if one doesn't understand the details.
It is because a theory that correctly explains observed phenomenon
generally opens up an entirely new world of order and efficiency.
The real problem arises when you have a theory that seems to explain all the
observations you make and yet may still be incorrect.