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Hi Steve & All, Oct 3, 2010
Haldane appears to have ignored the debates, in Roger Bacon's time,
about how many angels could sit on the head of a pin. These tiny angels
could no doubt fly with ease but how would an illustrator get one to sit
still long enough to be painted ? Probably why they painted only large
angels.
On a related matter, I continue to marvel at how much air time a typical
insect can log on tiny sips of food.
Yt, Dave Webster, Kentville
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Shaw" <srshaw@DAL.CA>
To: <naturens@chebucto.ns.ca>
Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2010 1:38 PM
Subject: Re: [NatureNS] Wasp question (long)
> In the same vein, the mathematical biologist (also atheist) J B S
> Haldane once used this scaling example to argue mischievously that the
> angels illustrated in medieval manuscripts or renaissance paintings
> could not have existed physically as depicted: to allow a man-sized
> angel to fly even with the wings shown (lift area, L-squared) would
> have required a breast-bone stretching down to the ground, to
> accommodate the necessary volume of muscle (L-cubed) required to power
> those wings in flapping flight for take-off. The many pictures of
> angels never show such exaggerated breast-bones. The argument would
> fail if the angels concerned were the size of hummingbirds, but this
> seems not to have been among the medieval illustrators' assumptions.
>
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