The reason, Bejan told LiveScience, has to do with something called a boundary layer.
Bejan is showing that one need not resort to randomness (and their corollaries meaninglessness and nihilism) in order to remove the science of evolution from the aesthetic grip of religion.
FORBES: The Constructal Sessions, Part II: Freedom and Design
"It is a counterintuitive idea, the fact that you should paddle with a fork, not with an oar, " said study researcher Adrian Bejan, a professor of mechanical engineering at Duke University.
When swimmers spread their fingers just right, each individual digit forms its own boundary layer, as if it's "dressed in a sleeve of water that moves with the finger, " Bejan said.
In fact, Bejan and his colleagues found that interactions between the hand and the water when the fingers are slightly spread increase the total force a swimmer can exert, translating to faster times in the pool.
With that in mind, I decided to probe the issue a bit more with Bejan and begin to identify the method he uses to address the improvement of flow systems both as an engineer and as an educator.
FORBES: The Constructal Sessions, Part II: Freedom and Design
My last conversation with Adrian Bejan ended on the notion that if design in nature is a universal principle of the material world, then freedom is the key variable that determines how efficiently designs can evolve over time.
FORBES: The Constructal Sessions, Part II: Freedom and Design
By placing design in a central place in our understanding of the world around us, and in defining nature and society as sets of interrelated flow systems, Bejan has created (or recognized) a new job description: the flow worker.
FORBES: The Constructal Sessions, Part II: Freedom and Design
Interview with Adrian Bejan, J.
FORBES: The Constructal Sessions, Part II: Freedom and Design
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