Bernoulli’s Elephant
by Paul Spooner 2016, Cabaret Mechanical Theatre, England
What is a pink elephant doing at Technorama?
The Bernoulli Elephant is a work by the artist Paul Spooner, a member of the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre from England. His works take a humorous, even mischievous look at things.
The Bernoulli Elephant is, of course, about the Bernoulli Principle. It is often used to explain the phenomenon of lift, e.g. in aeroplanes, and can still be found in school textbooks today. For example, it is said that a higher velocity of an air stream results in a lower air pressure. However, this is not so. Bernoulli is therefore wrong in our minds. In England, pink elephant refers to an alcohol-induced hallucination in which elephants can sometimes even fly, which closes the circle, because neither elephants nor aeroplanes fly solely because of Bernoulli's principle.