spring and flying machines

[eub]

(If these jar your sense of Seattle phenology, don't worry, they're a couple of weeks old.)

Asian pear leaves	lilac greenery bursts out so big-headed it looks ungainly	tulips in a sea of squill	trillium

tardigrade

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nineweaving posts:

[...]
There follow six pages of analysis and diagrams, relating to the mathematics of wing-flap and the sinusoid curve, and culminating in the triumphant sketch (Fig. 6, above):

“Now, just as when man wanted to make a machine to run like a horse, he duplicated the horse’s legs circularly so as to form wheels which could run at much greater speed, so I propose to indefinitely multiply or duplicate the wings of a bird, arranging them into a wheel so that they may flap at any desired speed. In general, therefore, this machine consists of a series of aeroplannes, gliders, or wings, arranged to move circularly in a substantially vertical plane....By moving in a circular path, the racking due to reciprocating motion is obviated; and, as some gliders are constantly descending, the apparatus is never free to fall...