Towers 2009-03-11 01:39:53 2009-04-07 14:12:09 Topic \section{Towers, Galileo and Physics} It has been reported that Galileo Galilei took advantage of the architectural error made with the famous Leaning \PMlinkexternal{Tower of Pisa,(Tuscany, Italy)}{http://binx101.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/14_19_53-the-leaning-tower-of-pisa-tuscany-italy_web.jpg} to carry out succesful experiments regarding gravitational acceleration, $g$, of falling massive bodies in the gravitational field $\widetilde{G}$ of the Earth. \section{Successful, Famous Towers} \emph{Eiffel Tower} \PMlinkexternal{Empire State Building}{http://www.sanjuansnowtreks.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/empirestate.jpg } No.1 Favorite: $http://www.sanjuansnowtreks.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/empirestate.jpg$ No.2 : $http://www.blirk.net/userfiles/wallpapers/fullsize/empire-state-building-001.jpg$ No.3 $http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y90/hillaryk/EmpireStateBuilding.gif$ No.4: \PMlinkexternal{Sears Tower:}{http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e1/SearsTowerMidwestEx.jpg} I admire No.1 , but take your pick! Here is also a green picture of Eiffel Tower that many Parisian artists didn't seem to like when it was built. \PMlinkexternal{Eiffel Tower}{http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Tour_Eiffel.png} $Tour_Eiffel.png$ $http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tour_Eiffel.png$ See linked picts There are many other towers--such as the ones shown above-- that have been major architectural successes but may not have contributed anywhere near as much to physics as Galileo's experiments from the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa ; this may also lead one to suspect that there is some hidden, negative (inverse) statistical correlation between successful physics experiments and architectural disasters. The new London bridge, with its forced oscillation problems-- uncovered promptly by the Nobel Laureate, Professor Brian Josephson (at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland), and reported in ``The Times''-- may be one such other indication of this inverse correlation possibility, but also strongly reminding one of the leading role of physics in relation to all sorts of human engineering, including civil engineering, machines, computers, robots, nanotechnologies, biotech, and so on. Thus, when physics and its universal laws are ignored, the results can be disastrous and, in turn, when the mathematical calculations are incorrect or plain wrong, one can expect almost with certainty the same kind of disastrous consequences. Hence engineers must master both physics and mathematics to a sufficient degree that such disasters do not recur and, well, most of the time they do not. But one should not, and cannot, forget either \PMlinkexternal{the famous disaster of the sunk Titanic}{http://www.wesleyjsmith.com/blog/uploaded_images/titanic-sinking-779048.jpg}, or of the burning of the \PMlinkexternal{hydrogen-filled Hindenburg dirigible at Lakehurst, New Jersey, in 1937}{http://imagecache.allposters.com/images/pic/PHO/sp_AAIB059_16x20~The-Hindenburg-Disaster-Posters.jpg} --yet another disastrous, but not so tall tower. Here, there is no need for one to look for statistical correlations as a lack of understanding, or just misuse, of both physics and mathematics is clearly the cause of such disasters, along with human greed. \subsection{`Accident', Disaster Towers} More recently, such misuse (or misuses) is (are) also the cause of \PMlinkexternal{the A- disaster}{http://www.gensuikin.org/english/photo.html} and the potential \PMlinkexternal{H-uncontrolled nuclear fusion tests}{http://www.astea.ch/physik/gifs/fusion.gif} \PMlinkexternal{or H-fusion weapons}{http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3209/2684215811_aa34e63ed9.jpg}, or actual, for worse--as for example at the \PMlinkexternal{Chernobyl reactor disaster in SU}{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chernobyl_Disaster.jpg} that affected much of the world, even outside Europe and Asia; in the latter three cases, however, this involved certain famous physicists' dismal failure to fully understand the social, political and human consequences of the newly acquired high power of physics in the new atomic and quantum world that physicists created, somewhat like making `a \PMlinkexternal{car}{http://www.fotosearch.com/bigcomp.asp?path=PHC/PHC012/SB10062532A-001.jpg} without brakes'. \subsection{Potential disasters stemming from ignoring Physics and Mathematics} Global warming and the ozone layer depletion are in the same category of potential disasters on an unprecedented scale for the human race. Beware that forgetting about physics and mathematics, and only playing `politics' with `green' words, have no chance at all of either solving these problems or averting such impending disasters.