During the past few weeks, social media, especially YouTube, has sparked controversy following a bet between Alexander Kosenko, a physics professor at UCLA, and Derek Muller, the famous science presenter on YouTube, with a value of $ 10,000 on the mechanism. It operates a car called "Blackbird".
An experimental vehicle that runs without fuel, but only with wind, was first built in 2010 to demonstrate that such a vehicle can go straight into the wind faster than the wind itself.
Blackbird uses a rotating belt that mechanically connects the rear wheels to the "wind turbine" at the top, which consists of 3 blades that rotate under the wind, pushing the car forward.
It is similar to the "pedal" of a bicycle that you press with your feet and rotates the rear wheel because it is connected to it mechanically by a rotating iron belt, but in the case of the Blackbird, the wind is instead of the feet.
Blackbird was established by an American engineer named Rick Cavallaro and another named John Borton, sponsored by several American companies, including Google and Joby Energy, and in cooperation with the Department of Aviation at San Jose State University. American.
sexy episode
Muller presented his episode on his Veritasium channel, in which he experiments with "Blackbird" and drives it faster than the wind, as the speed of the vehicle was 45 kilometers per hour, and the wind speed was only 16 kilometers per hour, and the episode got nearly 7 million views.
But Kosenko objected, declaring it wrong, as no wind-powered vehicle can run faster than the wind itself.
To understand it, let's imagine that you are riding in a boat and you are going windy in the sea. Your boat speed is expected to increase little by little to be at the same speed as the wind, but of course you can't overtake it because nothing can push the sails but the wind itself.
Kosenko says that the wind that pushed the car forward was variable. At first it was fast and drove the car to run at its own speed, but then the wind speed decreased and it seemed that the car was ahead of it.
car paradox
Kosenko and Mueller signed the betting paper with two very famous witnesses, American astronomer Neil DeGrasse Tyson and science presenter Bill Nye Then several videos of the "Blackbird" movement were examined and confirmed that it actually took place Faster than the wind, Kosenko lost the bet.
To understand the paradox, let's start with a boat that's running at sea. If it's already going downwind, it's impossible to be faster, but in the case of Blackbird there is an additional element, the spinning of the wheel on land.
When the wind pushes the blades of the cart, it rotates quickly and the rotating belt rotates with it, so the wheels rotate, but when the car reaches the top of its speed and crosses the wind speed barrier, there is another element that will generate energy, which is the wheels themselves that are running quickly, transferring that speed through the rotating belt to the blades at the top and increasing the Vehicle speed.
In any case, this bet, and the controversy it caused, was an important opportunity to show the public that science can be fun, and that it relates more to our daily lives than we think.