Know-it-all 101 🎓 ➡️ ~ The Concept of Aerodynamics

 When I think back to what first sparked my interest in aerodynamics, it wasn’t some complex formula or a physics lecture—it was origami airplanes. As a child, I’d fold sheets of paper into different designs and launch them across the room, fascinated by how a tiny change in the fold could make one plane soar gracefully while another nosedived after just a few seconds. I didn’t know it then, but I was already experimenting with the basic principles of aerodynamics.

At its core, aerodynamics is simply the study of how air interacts with objects in motion. Everything from how birds glide to how Formula 1 cars grip the road comes down to aerodynamics. In the simplest sense, it’s about two main things: lift (the upward force that keeps planes in the air) and drag (the resistance that slows things down). Even my childhood paper airplanes had to “negotiate” with these invisible forces every time I threw them.

One of the most fascinating parts of aerodynamics is that there are actually two “contradicting” explanations for how airplanes stay in the sky, and both are correct. The first is Bernoulli’s Principle, which explains that air moves faster over the curved top of a wing than the flat bottom, creating lower pressure above the wing and higher pressure below it—pushing the plane up. The second is Newton’s Third Law, which focuses on action and reaction: as the wing pushes air downwards, the air pushes the wing upwards in response. As a kid, when I first learned about this, it felt almost magical—two different truths coexisting, both explaining the same phenomenon from different angles.

Looking back, I realize that my paper planes were a small-scale version of this big concept. When I bent the wings slightly, I was changing how the air was deflected (Newton). When I adjusted the folds on the body, I was affecting how smoothly air could flow around it (Bernoulli). Without knowing it, I was discovering that flight isn’t about one neat answer—it’s about the harmony between multiple forces.

And that’s really what makes aerodynamics so captivating. It’s science, but it feels like art. It’s numbers and equations, but also intuition and imagination. From paper planes to real jets, it’s a reminder that sometimes the simplest things—like folding a piece of paper—can lead us to the most profound discoveries.