comp.sys.mac.advocacy

On Apr 11, 11:10=A0am, Jim wrote:
> In article
> <052fdb20-dd9d-4dac-8822-f18a7d1e8...@u69g2000hse.googlegroups.com>,

> > > > even at the height of large-yield development and testing the amount=

> > > > of uncertainty was huuuge. =A0castle bravo yield was off expectation=
s by
> > > > upwards of 10Mton. =A0that's 10 Million metric tons. =A0off by 10 Mi=
llion
> > > > times the size of the OK city bombing. =A0that's just insane.
>
> > > It was insane, but where was their choice (at the time)? There was no
> > > huge body of knowledge to draw on so there was a "chicken and the egg"=

> > > thing going on in a large way.
>
> > the body of knowledge that they did have showed that they clearly
> > couldn't come close to predicting yields- castle bravo's missed
> > predictions was not even close to an isolated incident- it's only the
> > shear magnitude of it that's astounding (looking back in retrospect-
> > not THAT surprising to those there).
>
> Ed, Where do you find this reported? I'd love to read it just for it's
> own sake.

i first heard most of it firsthand from someone who worked the tests
in the bikini atolls, but the information is public and widely
available. many interesting references here:
http://www.cfo.doe.gov/me70/manhattan/sources.htm
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/

> > >New frontiers always seem to have some
> > > sense of taking big chances don't you think?
>
> > no, i don't- new frontiers sometimes, but hardly always, have big
> > chances of negatively affecting a huge group of people in their
> > development (versus affecting them with their implementation (which is
> > often the point (to some extent)))- and hardly at the vaporize-the-
> > atmosphere level of risks! =A0when people talk about a 'big chance' or
> > 'large risk' that someone took, it's often to their OWN safety or
> > wealth, not a risk to HUMANITY. =A0:P
>
> Perhaps, but in these fields small things often have consequences beyond
> the obvious and scientists aren't about to go cavilierisly into
> something without any idea. In the case of the firt a-bomb Trinity(I
> think) they had done a lot of calculations and whatever necessary.
> Oppenheimer was concerned as were others, not just for the notion of
> lighting the atmosphere on fire, but the social ramifications as well.
> But science presses on taking reasonable precautions. After all, if we
> backed off at every suggestion of a problem, nothing would happen.
>
> And btw, new technologies aren't just tried because it affects only the
> one doing it. Take a new design with an airplane. If it crashes, it
> could take only the pilot or many if it hits another plane or building
> etc., and even a plane, it's still testing new things. An yea, it's a
> simple example without typing a book here!

that's still relatively small consequences, and frankly, these days
with airplanes, it ain't generally anything resembling a 'big chance'
in any way other than financial (i do airplane design, btw).



> > > No ed it's not the "Science" of film making which is the black art, bu=
t
> > > the manufacturing.
>
> > i'm not talking about your example, but your general statement about
> > science and black art.
>
> Sometimes research is a bit of black art ed. Often there is he "happy
> accident" that furthers research. Teflon comes to mind. Often science
> struggles with why something works when they can only get it to work but
> not know the mechanism by which it happens so it can be understood.

a 'happy accident' is very different than 'black art'. not knowing
exactly why something works is also very different than 'black art'.