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Risking My Life To Settle A Physics Debate
About this video
Veritasium investigates whether a wind-powered vehicle can travel directly downwind faster than the wind, driving the Blackbird craft himself. The video explains the physics behind a claim some physics professors dispute.
Why it appears in the archive
Frequently linked whenever wind-powered vehicles come up, as the clearest visual explanation of how the craft works.
AI-generated summary and labels from the source dataset; verify important details against the video. Source & credits.
From the Hacker News discussion
The visual that made it click for me was at 18:54 in the original video[0]. It shows the air hitting the propeller losing kinetic energy which becomes the energy ultimately making the vehicle go. I also don't know how you can watch the treadmill video and doubt it after seeing it go up the treadmill unless you believed it was a complete hoax. [0] [VIDEO]
Read original comment ↗Original video triggering the bet for context: [VIDEO] Video discussing the bet and going over criticism: [LINK] Veritasium is a great YouTube channel.
Read original comment ↗If you believe that sailboats can beat a drifting balloon downwind by zigzagging, then there is a very good explanation in the original Veritasium video that shows that this is essentially the same thing. Here's a link to the section of the video with that explanation [1]. Watch about 2 or 3 minutes starting there and it becomes clear. [1] [VIDEO]
Read original comment ↗I thought the video below provided a good explanation for why this works. The physics are similar to those of a single sailboat going faster than the wind. Imagine two sailboats on a cylindrical ocean on diagonal tacks, on opposite poles, and rotating around the core with rods connecting them to the core. Now you have a propeller. :) [VIDEO]
Read original comment ↗Derek from the YouTube channel Veritasium made two interesting videos about this vehicle. [VIDEO] [LINK] They go into some nice detail about why the physics works out the way it does.
Read original comment ↗You can sail faster than the wind when you push against a medium though. Veritasium has a very relevant interesting episode on this: [VIDEO] Although I agree it would be challenging to get any significant speed from it.
Read original comment ↗In the veratasium video [1] you can see it starting just from the wind (first attempt is around 5:20). It works just fine because as you scale up the vehicle you scale up the propeller, so there's plenty of surface for the wind to push against. 1: [VIDEO]
Read original comment ↗The original Veritasium video [VIDEO] The video of the bet and the further explanations - [LINK] -- at 13:28 is an example without aerodynamics.
Read original comment ↗