![]() Using the latent heat of fusion as the figure-the energy required to melt a substance-the authors ultimately calculated that the Sun would have melted Icarus’ wings in between 42 and 67 minutes. That’s an assumption, but at least we know exactly how much energy it would take to melt that wax. If the wax Daedalus used was spread very thin over both wing surfaces, Icarus would still be carrying almost six kilograms of wax on his back. Modeling the wings as a white, smooth surface, they determined that the wings would absorb only 40 percent of the energy hitting them every second (the rest would be reflected).įinally, the wax. Once the authors had the solar power imparted to the wings, they had to figure out how it would spread into the wax. ![]() When the authors also combine this assumed power from the Sun with the square footage of the assumed eagle wings, they calculated the final power-830 watts, or about half the power of an electric kettle-that would radiate over Daedalus’ waxy construction. Both of these assumptions determine how much of the Sun’s energy would make it to the wings. Since Icarus was flying from the Labyrinth of Crete, his location would have been near the equator. In the paper, the authors assumed that the day of Icarus’ flight would be a clear one with little cloud cover. The last step is to insert the conditions of the myth and make the final assumptions. Like all back-of-the-envelope calculations physicists do, they assume that the wings are basically rectangles. The bigger the wings, the more sun they will soak up. To do this, they scaled up the wingspan of a golden eagle as if the eagle was human height. Jonathan Cogle, Jake Cox, and Jimmy Pierce from The Centre for Interdisciplinary Science at the University of Leicester first estimated the size of Icarus’ wax wings. ![]() ![]() The next step is to make a bunch of assumptions (some will be better than others), which is exactly what an endearingly nerdy student paper on the subject has done. This allows us to look up the energy required to melt wax, which will be important later on. For example, we know that the wings Icarus used were made of wax. Like any good physics problem, the first thing you establish when looking at a scenario like this are the initial conditions. Icarus could have flown as close to the Sun as he wanted to the distance from the Sun is not what brought him crashing into the sea. But would such ambition really have brought him down? Physics says no. Icarus’ demise is the classical example of what happens when you get too cocky, too greedy, or too full of yourself. With arms flailing, Icarus plunges into the sea, never to fly again. His aerial acrobatics bring him too close to the Sun, which melts the wax wings. “The boy began to delight in his daring flight, and abandoning his guide, drawn by desire for the heavens, soared higher,” says Ovid in Metamorphoses. Soon after take-off, Icarus loses all fear. Icarus hesitates, unsure of his fitted wings. With a “never to be repeated kiss,” the master engineer takes off and waits for his son to do the same. As he hovers in a fast-moving breeze, he instructs Icarus to fly in between two extremes-fly too low and the ocean will swallow you, fly too high and the Sun will scorch you. Seeking to escape, the engineer in Daedalus gets the idea to build he and his son wings of feather and wax.ĭaedalus was the first to try his creation. Of course, the King betrays Daedalus (as these stories usually go), and Daedalus soon finds himself trapped in his own maze. As the story goes, Daedalus, Icarus’ father, was a master craftsman hired to build the Labyrinth for King Minos of Crete. Don't have time to read? Listen to the whole post below!ĭespite how much the myth of Icarus is cited in pop culture and classical literature, his entire tale spans barely four paragraphs in Metamorphoses -the magnum opus from Roman poet Ovid in the first century.
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