Aerodynamics of an Elephant

About

Aerodynamics of an Elephants is an image macro series featuring a computer-generated simulation of heat transfer and drag on an elephant. The image has been used in various contexts, pointing to the perceived absurdity of the image, as has aerodynamic simulations of other animals, such as lobsters and cows.

Origin

On May 29th, 2013, the website Symscape^[1] published the blog post "Elephants and Computational Fluid Dynamics." The post included a rendering of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Simulation around an elephant (shown below).

They explain the diagram, "[Zoology professor Warren Porter's] research team includes engineering-physics professor Riccardo Bonazza, art professor Steve Hilyard, and graduate student Peter Dudley. Together they have developed a methodology to model the heat transfer and drag around an elephant using CFD that shows good agreement with wind tunnel experiments."

Spread

On April 3rd, 2016, Imgur ^[2] user MostMajesticFlapFlap published a series of images of diagrams of the aerodynamics of various animals, including the elephant, a cow, a lobster and more (examples below, left and center).

On April 3rd, 2019, Twitter ^[3] @tioorochi shared an image of Spanish Laughing Guy. The post received more than 11,000 likes and 3,000 retweets in less than one year (shown below, right).

Over the next year, the image would continue to appear in various memes, typically as an absurd or non-sequetieur punchline to a meme. For example, on February 9th, 2020, Instagram ^[4] user @trashcanpaul posted a version in which it is the punchline to a joke about the difference between how men and women sneeze. The post received more than 47,000 likes in less than one week (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References