Learn How Airplane Wings Really Work in This 1 Minute Video

You may have been told, that airplanes are lifted because the air flowing over wings has a longer distance to travel and moves faster to keep up with the air underneath the wing. If this is what you believe, you are wrong -- at least to an extent.

A University of Cambridge professor is setting the record straight for this misconception, which he says has been around for decades but he doesn't know quite how it originated.

Watch as aerodynamics expert Holger Babinsky from the university's department of engineering explains how the wings really lift the airplane:

As the video shows, it is true that the air on the top of the wing does move faster, but it doesn't reach the end of the wing at the same time as the air traveling under the wing. Below are screenshots from the video showing this:

Gizmodo reports Babinsky's explanation:

What actually causes lift is introducing a shape into the airflow, which curves the streamlines and introduces pressure changes — lower pressure on the upper surface and higher pressure on the lower surface. This is why a flat surface like a sail is able to cause lift — here the distance on each side is the same but it is slightly curved when it is rigged and so it acts as an aerofoil.

So, it's all about curvature, not distance.