Mathematical Secret of Flight 6: Wikipedia Cover Up

To see that our new theory of flight fills a need, it is instructive to study how Wikipedia covers up the lack of a convincing theory in the literature:

• There are several ways to explain how an airfoil generates lift.
• Some are more complicated or more mathematically rigorous than others; some have been shown to be incorrect.
• For example, there are explanations based directly on Newton’s laws of motion and explanations based on Bernoulli’s principle.
• Both principles can be used to explain lift, but each appeals to a different audience.
• This article will start with the simplest explanation; more complicated and alternative explanations will follow.
• Explaining lift while considering all of the principles involved is a complex task and is not easily simplified.
• In attempting to explain why the air flows the way it does (e.g. why the flow follows the upper surface of the airfoil and why the streamtubes change size), the situation gets considerably more complex.
• It is here that many simplifications are made in presenting lift to various audiences.

We see that one part of Wikipedia struggles to hide that there is no theory of flight, while another part tells the truth by citing John D. Anderson, Curator of Aerodynamics at the National Air and Space Museum:

• It is amazing that today, almost 100 years after the first flight of the Wright Flyer, groups of engineers, scientists, pilots, and others can gather together and have a spirited debate on how an airplane wing generates lift. Various explanations are put forth, and the debate centers on which explanation is the most fundamental.

As a last line of defense Wikipedia presents the classical theory by Kutta-Zhukovsky (which we have shown to be incorrect).

• The effects of viscosity are contained within a thin layer of fluid called the boundary layer, close to the body. As flow over the airfoil commences, the flow along the lower surface turns at the sharp trailing edge and flows along the upper surface towards the upper stagnation point. The flow in the vicinity of the sharp trailing edge is very fast and the resulting viscous forces cause the boundary layer to accumulate into a vortex on the upper side of the airfoil between the trailing edge and the upper stagnation point.[26] This is called the starting vortex. The starting vortex and the bound vortex around the surface of the wing are two halves of a closed loop. As the starting vortex increases in strength the bound vortex also strengthens, causing the flow over the upper surface of the airfoil to accelerate and drive the upper stagnation point towards the sharp trailing edge. As this happens, the starting vortex is shed into the wake, and is a necessary condition to produce lift on an airfoil. If the flow were stopped, there would be a corresponding "stopping vortex". Despite being an idealization of the real world, the “vortex system” set up around a wing is both real and observable; the trailing vortex sheet most noticeably rolls up into wing-tip vortices.

In both politics and science, cover up is a most essential part of the game, because admitting that there are no answers to questions which should have answers, destroys credibility and authority, the core values of both politics and science. But pretending to have answers when no answers are available has a high cost, as demonstrated in Dr Faustus of Modern Physics.

The above connects to my old controversy with Wikipedia about d'Alembert's paradox discussed in posts on d'Alembertgate and the 2009 knol Wikipedia Inquisition, leading to a banning of my voice on Wikipedia. This makes it impossible to give any form of link to the new theory of flight on Wikipedia, as if understanding what keeps an airplane in the air would be dangerous knowledge which must be kept hidden to the people.