But using pressure differentials is also sort of tautological. Lift IS the integral of the pressure on the surface, so saying that the pressure differentials cause lift is... true but unsatisfying. It's what makes the pressure difference appear that's truly interesting.
Funnily enough, as an undergraduate the first explanation for lift that you will receive uses Feynman's "dry water" (the Kutta condition for inviscid fluids). In my opinion, this explanation is also unsatisfying, as it's usually presented as a mere mathematical "convenience" imposed upon the flow to make it behave like real physics.
Some recent papers [1] are shedding light on generalizing the Kutta condition on non-sharp airfoils. In my opinion, the linked papers gives a way more mathematically and intuitively satisfying answer, but of course it requires some previous knowledge, and would be totally inappropriate as an answer by the AI.
Either way I feel that if the AI is a "pocket PhD" (or "pocket industry expert") it should at least give some pointers to the user on what to read next, using both classical and modern findings.
[1]: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/376503311_A_minimiz...
