Tony's Hist323 Blog

After Three Mile Island

2005-04-25T12:03:00.000-07:00

I wrote my research paper about Nuclear Power and Three Mile Island and I discovered something of particular interest while doing my research that I couldn't write in much detail on because it didn't fit into my thesis that well. In the book Phantom Risk: Scientific Inference and the Law, by Bernstein, Foster and Huber, the health problems of the public after the Three Mile Island incident are brought up. They bring up the fact that stress may have in fact caused most of the health problems that people saw. Scientific research showed that the nuclear exposure from the incident wasn't much more than what a person would typically see in a months time normally. People however were vomiting and feeling sick after the accident. Phantom Risk attributes this partly to stress, worrying about nuclear exposure and over reacting to the situation. I can't say that I completely agree, as this section of the book seemed to have been written by inside "experts" on the situation, so their views may be slanted. I can however see this happening, as people often don't completely understand nuclear power and often over react to any incident, however small or large it may be. While researching the paper, I found some instances of people over reacting. Here is a good site as an example: http://www.tmia.com/

Publics Perception of Tests

2005-04-14T11:46:00.000-07:00

Collins and Pinch chapter 3 opened my eyes to possibilities of the public perceiving a public test differently than the actual outcome. I have always known that there are skeptics of everything, but they bring up some very valid points on the two tests they discuss. Generally speaking, the skeptics in most current issues are off the wall and they stretch the truth or reach really far to make conclusions. There were a few things that bothered me about this chapter in Collins and Pinch however. It seems as though they have taken these two tests to the extreme the opposite direction from the public perception. I do think that the publics perception on both of these tests wasn't entirely the truth, however I think that the ideas that are presented in The Golem at Large are pushing the limit the other way. In the nuclear flask portion, they state that this is not the worst case scenario for the flasks. Well sure, it isn't the WORST case scenario, but when was the last time one of these flasks fell off of a moving train THEN was run into at 100mph by another train? If you try hard enough, you can come up with a situation to destroy anything, I feel that the demonstration was more than enough to show that the flask could survive any reasonable accident and some not so reasonable accidents.
As for the AMK test, I tried to do some more research on this. From the videos I have found, the initial fireball is insanely intense and even entered the cabin some. I couldn't find an uninterrupted video to watch to find out of the flames did, in fact die down shortly after the initial impact, but from the looks of the videos I saw, that didn't look very feasible. (Videos can be seen here: http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Movie/CID/) . It seems as though they took some liberties to make their points stronger just as the publics initial perception didn't truly examine all of the details.

Manhattan Project

2005-04-01T13:32:00.000-08:00

The entire Manhattan Project in general has always fascinated me. One part in particular that has always amazed me is how so many young engineers, dropped everything to go work on this project with no concept of what they were getting into. Many of the brightest engineers and scientists in the country just packed up and left with their families to go work on a top secret project. I doubt many of them had any idea what the project was even involving. I don't know how the country was at the time, maybe this looked as though it was a better way of life, but I couldn't imagine myself packing up everything like that.
Another topic that was discussed in class at the time was whether or not the scientists should have continued once they realized what they were doing. Personally, I could see myself getting so into my work, after dedicating my entire life to it for so long, that it would be hard for me to admit the reality of it. I think its human nature. Once you put so much effort into something, you have a certain attachment to it and its hard to see the reality at times. This happens with anything, not just work. If someone was going to stop the Manhattan project, I think it would have to have been an upper level person who didn't personally work on the project much. The project wouldn't have had any personal meeting to him so I doubt his vision would be blurred. Some more information on this topic can be found at: http://www.clemson.edu/caah/history/FacultyPages/PamMack/lec323/manhattan.htm

Turbo Codes on Mars

2005-03-30T23:02:00.000-08:00

I went to the Turbo Codes lecture on Mars tonight. It was a very interesting lecture. I need to do some research on the topic now as I was confused about some parts of it. The original data transmissions from Mars were incredibly slow with no compression and no data recovery system. Technology has produced both compression and data recovery systems. My main question from the lecture was how do these two items work together. A data compression system compresses the data (1's and 0's) into less numbers. I really don't know how they work, but at the moment I am not concerned with that. Data recovery systems usually append more numbers onto the end of a string of numbers. The example he gave at the lecture was of a 4 character string (ex: 1001). This string would have two more digits placed at the end according to a diagram. If one of the numbers in the string was lost or swapped, it could be recovered using this same diagram. Some combinations of two numbers being lost or swapped could also be recovered using this same method. My confusion however comes in with how do you both compress and expand data. It seems to me like it would be a loosing battle. You lose some clarity with compression but you try to maintain clarity with the data recovery systems. It was also interesting to see that the data transfer rate in the next generation craft to Mars is so much faster than previous generations that the compression ratio will only be 2:1. The previous crafts have been as high as 6:1. Here is some information on turbo codes in space: http://www.elec.york.ac.uk/comms/projects/space-time-turbo.html

Extermination and War

2005-03-10T09:12:00.000-08:00

One of the topics that is being discussed lately is the comparison of extermination of bugs and war. These two items may not seem similar upon first inspection, but after some thinking, they become very similar. People began to using gases that are lethal to the "pest" to remove them. This is the same idea that has been used in warfare. The overall idea is the same too. You want to kill the problem without harming the surroundings. Generally that is an impossible feat, but it is the desired outcome. In warfare the problem is the enemies soldiers and things like chemicals and bombs are used to get rid of them. In nature, the problem is usually insects or diseases that harm a crop and things such as gases and powders are used to get rid of them. In both war and nature however, there are undesirable outcomes. In war, innocent people are harmed and towns or countries are ruined. In nature some insects that are not the problem are killed off and water and other things are contaminated by the pesticides. Overall, war is a good comparison to extermination of pests. I think the problem comes in however, when we use war as a comparison for all human interaction with nature. There are a lot of things that humans do to preserve nature and live with nature where as war is more like the extermination part.

Household Technologies

2005-02-26T15:38:00.000-08:00

In class on February 23^rd, we discussed how some of the “conveniences” that came to the home after World War II actually increased the amount of workload that housewives performed. The way I see this is that for starters, the quality of life in the houses increased during that time frame. People had more clothes and cleaner clothes. They were wearing their clothes for one day and then washing them as apposed to previously when they’d possibly wear the same thing for a week. Houses were getting carpet and it was being cleaned regularly, not just on occasion. The entire house was staying cleaner. I believe that these technologies also paved the way to modern technologies which make housework simpler. Most households no longer have someone staying at home and do a lot less work than shortly after World War II. I believe the houses are still as clean and the quality of living has only gone up. This shows that it was just an intermediate step in which the work load went up. It took time for everyone to figure out how to improve the technologies to not only improve the quality of living but to also save time. I think that a lot of technologies go through an awkward stage where it takes times for everyone to figure things out.

Skyscrapers

2005-02-21T11:27:00.000-08:00

It has always been amazing to me how tall some buildings in major cities are. Being from the suburbs of Philadelphia, I have known impressively tall buildings my entire life. What is most amazing to me is that in 1892, the tallest building was a mere 21 stories. About 40 years later, in 1932, the Empire State Building was completed at 86 stories. The amount of technology that must go into that 65 story jump is insane and to think that it was accomplished in only 40 years. The Empire State building was not the only building of its type at the time either. In that 40 year time frame, buildings like the Woolworth building sprung to new impressive heights. Only two years prior to the Empire State building’s completion, the Chrysler building was completed at 77 stories tall. After this boom however, the building and reaching for the sky slowed substantially, which has always been baffling to me. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that these two buildings in New York City were passed. It only took 40 years for them to gain 65 stories and it took 38 more years to get another 100 feet in height.

My understanding has been that it becomes extremely complex to incorporate elevator systems into a building of that height. The buildings need express elevators that go to sort of “stations” in the building where passengers exit and board local elevators to go to their specific floor. It’s these details that I suppose are the reason buildings haven’t stretched even further. It is also these complexities that you never realize as a young kid standing on the street staring at the top of your favorite building in a city.

Early Electrification

2005-02-13T11:58:00.000-08:00

In class discussing early electrification, I became intrigued. The class discussion can be seen here.

The reason for being intrigued by this is just the sheer cost that must have been required to get this project going. There was no infrastructure set up whatsoever for this system. Edison has to create the method to create the power and build a station to do this. He then needed to transport the power from his creation point to buildings for use. Once inside the buildings, wiring had to be run in existing buildings, switches installed and light fixtures installed. He needed to create metering systems and train people to operate all of these devices. The complexity of creating this entire system and getting the financial backing required just seems insane to me. Edison also had to get enough people in one location to buy into his design and let him come retrofit their existing buildings with this new "wiring." All of this was done for the sole purpose of lighting. At the time there was nothing else developed to run on this new electric system. In the modern day, if someone develops a new light bulb to run on electricity, they just develop the light bulb and possibly the fixture and the rest of the system is already set up for them. It amazes me that Edison set up this entire system, and I suppose I can see his reasoning for not wanting to let anyone else’s theories in (i.e. Alternating current). Edison wanted to keep the entire system his own. Maybe we are seeing something similar to this infrastructure being created today with internet. Companies are having T1 and T3 lines installed regularly across the country, but on the other hand, houses are using existing structures like phone lines and cable lines to get internet connections, so I suppose it's not very comparable.

The Replacement for Displacement?

2005-02-12T15:13:00.000-08:00

When it comes to automotive engines, there is an old saying "There is no replacement for displacement." While, I feel that for the most part this statement is true, modern day technology has found ways to deal with this.

A quick look around on many foreign car manufacturer's web sites and you will find that many cars, even performance oriented versions, are coming with 4 and 6 cylinder engines with displacements well under 200 cubic inches. In the 60's and 70's, any performance car would contain an 8 cylinder with a displacement as high as 500 cubic inches. The reason car manufacturers are able to do this are the insane advancements in technology. Things such as overhead camshafts with variable valve timing, 4 and even 5 valve per cylinder, cylinder heads, electronic fuel injection and forced induction are making this all possible. Some of these technologies have been around for a while, but they are just now being fully utilized by the OEM market. Two good examples of amazing technology include the Honda S2000 and the Mitsubishi Evolution VIII. The Honda S2000 makes 240 horse power naturally aspirated out of only 2.0L. That is the most horse power per liter, naturally aspirated, ever produced in a production engine, and this car can be driven on a daily basis back and forth to work with Honda reliability and decent fuel economy. The Mitsubishi Evolution has models ranging from the base 276 horse power model up to a European only model that has 400 horse power. This is done through a turbocharged 2.0L four cylinder. That means this car can make 400 horse power, with only 122 cubic inches. Back in the 60's it was quite an accomplishment to be able to match your horse power with your cubic inch numbers, the Evolution more than triples it.

I do feel that this technology could be put forth in larger displacement engines and do insane things, which supports the comment of "there is no replacement for displacement." On the other hand, who needs 400 cubic inches when John Shephard is making nearly 1200 horse power out of a 122 cubic inch Mitsubishi engine and General Motors has a factory based program making nearly 1200 horse power out of their 122 cubic inch Ecotec motor that can be found in Cavaliers and SunFires.

Philadelphia's City Hall

2005-02-10T23:27:00.000-08:00

In class on February 9th, we were speaking of sky scrapers and building technology. As a sidebar, a discussion on Philadelphia began. Since Philadelphia is my home town, I took an interest in this duscussion. The first point I want to clarify is that it was mentione that Ben Franklin's hat was the highest point in the city up to about 15 years ago. The truth is, it is William Penn who stands atop of city hall in Philadelphia. William Penn remained the tallest point in Philadelphia for nearly 100 years, from 1894 to 1987, when One Liberty Place was erected taller than Wiilliam Penn.

City Hall in Philadelphia is quite an impressive building. To this day, this structure which was created in the 1800's remains the largest AND tallest masonary building in the world. It also remains the largest and most expensive Municipal Building in the United States, even larger than the US Capital. The building stands at 548 ft.11¼ in to the top of William Penns hat and contians 14.5 acres of floor space. The building cost over 24 million dollars to build in 1891, which equates to roughly 6.3 billion dollars in 1996. The building took nearly 30 years to construct because of its substantial costs. Money was requested and the funding was cut every year, delaying materials required to complete the project. The statue of William Penn that stands at the top of the tower is 37 feet tall and weighs roughly 27 tons.

I find all of this information extremely interesting, especially since I have randomly roamed the halls of this impressive building. The upper levels of the interior of this building are currently in pretty poor condition but the exterior has just gone through a major restoration. I beleive the inside will be restored in the near future. If anyone is ever in Philadelphia, I highly recomend taking the tour to the top of the tower, the entire city can be seen from the observation deck. Most of the information included in this post was found on: City Hall

Science vs Technology take 2

2005-02-06T10:18:00.000-08:00

In response to the post found here, which states:

"A friend who teaches at an engineering college in Massachusetts wrote to me on this topic:

The example I use is the talented auto mechanic who can fix anything wrong with any car. I make the point that one of my daughter's teachers xx years ago praised such a person for having a deep knowledge of physics. I ask my students -- many of whom are struggling with freshman physics -- if they agree. Most do not.

If you agree, in what sense do you mean it?"

My response to this is, no the auto mechanic doesn't have a deep knowledge of physics, and that is not required to fix a car. To fix a car, you need to know how the components work together and how the electronics work together. This can be understood without knowing physics, but the science behind them is still understood. Physics does not dictate everything that goes on in a car, nor do you need to be able to work out a kinematics problem to be able to fix a car. I am willing to bet that most very good talented auto mechanics could suggest some changes to the engineers that designed the vehicles to improve particular components of any car. This is because they understand how things work. They may not be able to describe it in terms of formula's and equations, but they know how it works. You cannot possibly diagnose complex problems within a car without a good understanding of how it works, not in mathimatical terms, but in simple, common terms.

Science Based Technology

2005-01-24T14:05:00.000-08:00

This is the first of my weekly entries to this Blog. I hope to have other topics brought up in the course that spark my intrest as this one did.

On January 14th in History 323, we began to discuss the differences between craft based technology and science based technology. Some notes from class on that day can be seen here. While I agree that there are some slight differences between technology that is brought about through "science" as we discussed in class and through craft, I think they are much more closely related than we discussed.

Craft is based off of science, the people who are performing the craft may not know the formulas behind the physics of what they are doing, but chances are, they do understand the way things work physically, which to me is science. They do testing to improve products and further develop their understanding of things, this was the science of the day. This is also how science was developed into what it is today. The equations of motion did not just appear without testing, someone developed the equations based on experiences then had to test the validity of them. This was the same thing that the craftsman did to develop early technologies. They would develop a product based on prior experience then test its usefullness in the real world.

I do understand a slight difference between a modern day science based technology and these types of technologies, but I do feel that these older technologies were also heavily based on science, it was just the science of the day.