Mr swordfish

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Education on the matter of aerodynamic lift

Hi Mr Swordfish. A couple of days ago I met Dr Graham Wild from the Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of New South Wales, Canberra campus. I discovered he has an intense interest in the science of aerodynamic lift and its place in education of engineers and scientists. (Wild's background is as a physicist.)

Wild has recently written an excellent summary of the background to the equal transit time theory. See ETT.

He has also written some other excellent papers on this subject. You might be interested in the following:

'Is that lift diagram correct? A visual study of flight education literature', Physics Education, 58. Wild G, 2023, [1]

'Misunderstanding Flight Part 1: A Century of Flight and Lift Education Literature', Education Sciences, 13, pp. 762 – 762. Wild G, 2023, [2]

'Misunderstanding Flight Part 2: Epistemology and the Philosophy of Science', Education Sciences, 13, pp. 836 – 836.  Wild G, 2023, [3]

His papers are available on open source and can be cited with appropriate attribution. I plan to use them in this way.

Cheers. Dolphin (t) 11:38, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Interesting article. I was familiar with Misunderstanding Flight Part 1 and intended to chase down all the refs and read them, but I got distracted. Didn't know about Part 2.

As for the "On the Origins and Relevance of the Equal Transit Time Fallacy to Explain Lift" article, I have to disagree with his conclusions. The analogy between ETT and Newton's theory of gravity is one of the worst I've seen in recent memory. Newton's theory of gravity, along with all of classical physics (including basically all of aerodynamics) is still a coherent and correct theory. However, it is a model that is not applicable to things moving very fast or things that are very small. So in some instances a more complex model (i.e. relativity or quantum mechanics) must be used. That doesn't invalidate classical mechanics.

ETT, OTOH, is just plain wrong. It's not a theory in the sense that any serious engineer or physicist would use it to describe or predict lift. Nor have they in the past. It's not even like 2-D potential flow, which while having many flaws actually does a reasonable job of predicting lift in some circumstances. There's a big difference between a simplified or incomplete model and something that is demonstrably wrong and not based on any physical principle.

My take is that he gives ETT too much credence. His question "...does ETT belong in primary or secondary education?" should receive a resounding "no" other than perhaps to mention in passing that many people have used this incorrect explanation and that you may see it in older materials. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 15:23, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Enquiry on Removal of 'Induced Demand' Entry from Transportation Misconceptions

Hey. From my research and understanding, adding more lanes for motor traffic doesn't provide long-term benefits because more drivers will want to drive these roads and return congestion levels back to before. I'm approaching my argument from the general anti-car perspective of https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/.

I'd like to better understand how you came to the idea of removing the entry.

Best,

Ahmed VisualPlugin Abo-Shadi

Please see the discussion at [4]. If you would like to plead the case for inclusion that's the place to do it. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 15:35, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Your Very Own Personal Misconception

Hiya,

I won't be trying to put it in the article since I don't think the language used is equivalent to "common misconception", and from a very very cursory glance I'm not sure this is covered across multiple RS, but here's a quote from this Telegraph article about swordfish:

"The popular belief of their 'sword' being used as a spear smaller fish is misleading as they are thought to use it to slash and injure prey animals."

If your name references swordfish you probably already know this, but it's nice to have here as a tribute regardless ~

Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 08:07, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

MEDRS on LOCM

I didn't add that one because it's the one that got removed by Macrakis. I tagged it because it would need replacing if it was being removed. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 17:29, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Launching the editor in LOCM

Hey MS, I wanted to confirm this with an editor before I went into the discussion making these assertions. I've used a stopwatch to time from clicking edit to being able to edit the text and I have got 17 seconds. This is after waiting 7 seconds for the page to load. I am really hoping if this was a case of my experience being highly unusual this could be nipped in the bud before it goes into the discussion. Whenever you have a spare 17 seconds I hope you can confirm/refute this. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 04:14, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

All resolved :) Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 08:23, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Offensive vernacular

Why do you consider it so necessary to use an offensive vernacular name at every minor mention of Cytisus scoparius? Why can't you accept Broom (the official standard name), or Common Broom? You are being very unreasonable and behaving in a disproportionate manner that is not conducive to good international relations. - MPF (talk) 11:16, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

1) I would suggest you familiarize yourself with the material at Help:Minor_edit.

2) There are many pages that use what you call "an offensive vernacular name". Is there something special about Cytisus scoparius that triggers a response, or is it any use of the term "scotch"? If the former, the proper venue for discussion is at talk:Cytisus_scoparius, where it appears that consensus has been reached. If the latter, I'm not sure what the proper venue is, but it would need a wider audience than here on my talk page. Either way, if you can reach consensus that supports your view, I will defer to that consensus. Absent that, my opinion is to use the common term and adhere to established consensus.

3) Also see WP:AGF. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 13:51, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

A pretty minor edit, the removal of 6 letters that cause a lot of people a lot of offence. It's the misuse of the word "Scot*h", which is to "Scots", as "Ni*ger" is to "Negro" or "Black African", in contexts other than the specific case of whisky. And no, consensus was not reached at talk:Cytisus_scoparius; only the action of bullying a long-term contributor away and refusing to accept anything/anyone that didn't bow down to largely American imperialism over vernacular names of non-American species. The hostility I received there stopped me from editing wikipedia for several years, because it was so unpleasant. And I suggest that you look at WP:AGF too, instead of automatically treating my edits as vandalism. - MPF (talk) 18:53, 24 September 2024 (UTC)