• Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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    4 hours ago

    Well in fluid dynamics you don’t really make the distinction between liquid and gas. You can model air as basically just a very low viscosity fluid and it works. No one really knows why it works because it shouldn’t, air doesn’t stick to itself, but if you pretend that it does the simulations still work, even though they’re wrong.

    If you look in most physics textbooks even at quite a high level they will tell you that aircraft fly because air sticks to itself, but again, it doesn’t. No one is quite sure why aircraft work, no one’s all that certain where the lift comes from. But physics textbooks hate to admit that so they just pretend that air sticks to itself.