“It depends on what kind of flying you want it to do. If you just want something to float, you can make it hollow inside, and that just takes the energy to push the air away once and it'll float forever.”
He takes a tiny bead of glass and expands it into a wispy sphere like a large soap bubble. It drifts away on the breeze and a little upward.
“If you want it to be able to go in a particular direction or carry a significant load, then it needs enough energy to lift and propel itself, just like anything else. Big wings are more efficient. As a general rule, imitate birds and you won't go far wrong.
“But if you mean you want to have your ball of glass floating with you rather than rolling behind you, that's a bit of a different subject, because you don't exactly want it to turn it into an island-sized bubble or have it noisily windily hovering all the time. You want to carry it.
“For example, our sunshade up there is supported by all this glass I've spread out on the ground around us. This is simple and no load on me, but I have to constantly reshape the glass to move it along, which is a skill I had to practice. The stuff I'm not using right now, I keep some of it in my clothes” — a little glass tentacle waves from a sleeve cuff — “so it's well balanced around me, but most of it right now is my mock-bodies that you saw me flying with.”
no subject
He takes a tiny bead of glass and expands it into a wispy sphere like a large soap bubble. It drifts away on the breeze and a little upward.
“If you want it to be able to go in a particular direction or carry a significant load, then it needs enough energy to lift and propel itself, just like anything else. Big wings are more efficient. As a general rule, imitate birds and you won't go far wrong.
“But if you mean you want to have your ball of glass floating with you rather than rolling behind you, that's a bit of a different subject, because you don't exactly want it to turn it into an island-sized bubble or have it noisily windily hovering all the time. You want to carry it.
“For example, our sunshade up there is supported by all this glass I've spread out on the ground around us. This is simple and no load on me, but I have to constantly reshape the glass to move it along, which is a skill I had to practice. The stuff I'm not using right now, I keep some of it in my clothes” — a little glass tentacle waves from a sleeve cuff — “so it's well balanced around me, but most of it right now is my mock-bodies that you saw me flying with.”