I find planes fascinating. Those humongous machines are capable of flying thousands of miles at speeds just below the speed of sound, cruising over 35,000 feet above MSL, with hundreds of passengers in comfort and safely at prices that billions of people can afford.
If in the year 1900 — that wasn’t too long ago — you had told someone that traveling at 500 miles per hour would be commonplace by the year 1970 (the year the jumbo jet Boeing 747 entered service), they would worry about your sanity. Furthermore, if you insisted that people would be traveling around 7 miles above the earth while crossing continents, they would have you committed to a lunatic asylum.
It’s hard enough to get up to 7 miles above ground. But on top of that, to move at 500 miles per hour? That’s two impossible feats at the same time. That’s unbelievable squared.
I often meditate on the fact that these commercial jetliners evolved from their ancestral form around the year 1900 in less than half a century. Their progenitor was built out of wood, fabric and wires by a couple of bicycle mechanics from Dayton, OH. They started with experimenting with gliders for several years, and then having figured out the physics of flight, added an engine that they built in their shop. The first powered flight was on 17th December 1903 in Kitty Hawk, NC. Continue reading “Energy Matters”
Atanu Dey : Life is a Random Draw 