If Birds Can Fly, Why Can’t Humans? An Example of the Physics of Scale
This isn’t really about birds, this is about Angel (from X-Men). But if you want to think about birds instead, that’s cool too. In case you aren’t familiar with Angel, he’s one of the X-Men and he has wings. Check it out.
There was a post on Reddit with a question about the size of his wings. OK, let’s do this. There’s some really fun physics here.
Real Birds
If you want to look at fake things (superheroes) it’s best to start with real things. Birds are real. Don’t believe the “Birds Aren’t Real” conspiracy.
These real birds come in all sizes. There is the super tiny humming bird and very large birds like vultures. Here is a comparison of two birds of different sizes. I’ve displayed them with about equal body lengths (so it’s obviously not to scale).
