,
5 tweets,
2 min read
Read on Twitter
1. A quick thread on Albert Einstein and aviation safety. The physicist applied himself to the question of aerodynamics during WWI, serving from 1915-17 as a consultant to two German aviation firms.
2. The “Einstein wing” that he designed was intended to be an improved airfoil. It was actually equipped on a test aircraft which, its pilot reported, flew “like a pregnant duck.” (It’s #95 on this chart, reproduced in David Bloor’s “Enigma of the Airfoil.”) 
3. Einstein had approached it as a theoretical problem, but made some faulty assumptions. But aviation was the realm of wind-tunnel tests and practical experimentation. Results were what mattered, not theory. And Einstein’s airfoil was quickly revealed to be less functional.
4. Yes, airplanes are growing more complex. Commercial aviation is simultaneously growing safer—modern aircraft are less likely to have fatal accidents than “old and simpler” planes. That’s the benefit of empirical, incremental approaches.
5. “That is what can happen to a man who thinks a lot but reads little…” Einstein reflected, “I have to admit that I have been ashamed of my folly of those days."
