When you throw a ball, it isn’t flying like a bird or a bumblebee, animals that have to work to hold themselves up. And in this great picture from our friend Matthew Peterson, the math shows that flying fish fly for real, too. A ball would follow the red line and plop back down into the water, but we see from the shape of a flying fish’s path that they stay in the air longer. The fish zoom at up to 37 miles an hour before “taking off”, then, by holding their fins open like wings, they can glide up to 4 feet above the water.Lace up: How many fish can you count in the bigger picture?
Jog: Point to the 4th fish picture from the left in the bottom picture. Is that the highest the fish flew?
Sprint: Of the 13 fish pictures in the bottom picture, how many come after the 4th?
Hurdle: If a flying fish swims 10 seconds to take off, then flies for 2, then swims for 10, flies for 2…what is it doing at 30 seconds?
High Jump: If a flying fish swims 10 seconds to take off, then flies for 2, then swims for 10, flies for 2 and keeps that pattern up for 1 minute, how much time does it spend flying, if it starts with a 10-second swim?
Answers:
Lace up: We count 4 fish!
Jog: The fish at the 5th, 6th,7th, 8th and 9th spots are higher.
Sprint: 9 more fish pictures.
Hurdle: It’s swimming. It finished its last flight at 24 seconds.
High Jump: 10 seconds, since it does 5 flights (5 12-second chunks). Another way to get it: it spends 1/6 of each 12-second chunk flying, and since the minute contains complete sets of 12 seconds, it spends 1/6 of the minute in the air.
