a million monkeys typing

UK Observer: Wikipedia defies aerodynamics

Posted January 19th, 2005 at 08:40am

New article in the UK newspaper The Observer: Why encyclopaedic row speaks volumes about the old guard:

According to the laws of aerodynamics, the bumblebee should not be able to fly. Yet fly it manifestly does, albeit in a stately fashion. So much for the laws of aerodynamics.

Much the same applies to Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia written, edited and maintained by its readers. Or, to put it another way, written, edited and maintained by anyone who can be bothered to log in and change it. By all laws of reference-work publishing, Wikipedia ought to be a disaster. Yet it is exactly the opposite - an exceedingly useful online reference work often consulted by this columnist and countless others.

While I seem to remember some scientist on the Discovery Channel attempting to debunk the myth of the bee’s aerodynamic instability, the metaphor is nevertheless a good one. Wikipedia is generally my first choice of reference, before I ever hit Google.