Science in 2017

Posted on December 29, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

It may not be an ‘official’ end-of-year custom, but many folks make lists as New Year approaches.

BBC News made a list of eight “amazing science stories” of 2017.

I can see how the stories are “amazing,” from their viewpoint, and not surprised that they saw a world politics item as scientific. On the other hand, they included one of the ‘gravitational wave’ stories, so I won’t complain.

Admiring and Describing God’s Work

I’ll be talking about the global cooling global warming climate change, so I’d better review why I think it’s an issue.

Also why I think we should ‘do something’ about it — after we learn a great deal more.

Some Christians, Catholics included, think Ussher’s chronology is basically accurate; that this universe is only a few thousand years old. It was pretty good scholarship in the 17th century, given a particular Western worldview. (November 3, 2017; June 30, 2017)

We’ve learned a very great deal since then.

We’ve learned that this universe is immense and ancient. Earth is several billion years old. The knowledge doesn’t bother me a bit. Having an unexpurgated Bible helps, and that’s another topic. (October 29, 2017)

I figure God can handle cosmic scale. Even if I didn’t approve, it wouldn’t make much difference. God’s God, I’m not.

Part of our job is admiring and describing God’s work. (Sirach 17:1–14; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 283, 341)

Telling the Almighty that it’s built wrong seems silly, at best.

Change Happens

I’m not particularly worried about the latest ‘climate change’ news.

That’s partly because I’ve been following that sort of thing for a half-century. After a while, every ‘crisis’ starts looking pretty much the same; and as likely as the last to blow over.

That said, think ‘climate change’ is real, in the sense that Earth’s climate is changing. I’d be astonished if scientists learned that Earth’s climate stopped changing.

I’m interested in what’s happening on the planet I call home. I also know a bit about what’s happened before ‘now.’

We’ve become accustomed to a “normal” climate, with freezing temperatures during temperate zone winters and comparatively low sea levels.

That’s understandable, since the first of us showed up around the start of Earth’s current ice age. Which reminds me: I’m quite sure that Adam and Eve aren’t German. (September 23, 2016)

The last I checked, most scientists figure we’re in an interglacial period, a temporary ‘warm spell’ before the glaciers return. (November 17, 2017)

Learning

Letting that happen would be awkward, since New York and other major cities would be in the way of growing ice sheets.

The good news, I think, is that we probably have centuries — maybe millennia — to do something.

I’m pretty sure we can, particularly since there’s evidence that we’ve already inadvertently tweaked Earth’s thermostat.

I’d be more comfortable with any ‘climate change’ proposal, if we weren’t looking at a branch of science that’s barely a century old.

We’ve learned quite a bit: and are learning that there’s a very great deal left to learn.

Considering the power we wield, knowing what we’re doing before making major changes seems prudent.

“Little Less than a God”

Even if I hadn’t been following ‘science news’ since my youth, I’d think we have great power over this world.

Given recent ‘lords of creation’ nonsense, I’d better explain.

We’ve known that we’re hot stuff for a very long time.

“What are humans that you are mindful of them, mere mortals that you care for them?
“Yet you have made them little less than a god, crowned them with glory and honor.”
(Psalms 8:5–6)

We’re made “in the image of God” — with authority over this world. (Genesis 1:26–28; Catechism, 16)

Limited authority. We don’t own the place. Our job, part of it, is looking after this world: for our reasoned use and for future generations. (Genesis 2:5–8; Catechism, 339, 356–358, 2402, 2415–2418, 2456)

Our position is like a steward’s or foreman’s: responsible for maintenance and operation, with authority needed to do the job. God is the owner.

Under the circumstances, our power and responsibility most definitely does not encourage complacent smugness.

Daunting Responsibilities

I’ve suspected that a sense of our power may be behind the enduring fear that God will smite us if we use the brains God gave us. Or that we’ll incur the wrath of Mother Nature. (November 17, 2017; August 21, 2016; July 31, 2016)

Being “little less than a god” is scary, at least for those who appreciate what can happen when we misuse our power.

I don’t see a problem with science, since I think noticing beauty and order in the universe is a good idea. So is learning its natural laws, and using that knowledge: wisely. (Catechism, 16, 341, 373, 1704, 1730–1731, 2293)

Fearing new ideas seems like a bad idea.

So does rushing into overly-enthusiastic experiments. Ideally, Richmann’s lethal encounter with lightning would have taught scientists, in his generation and all that followed, that following reasonable safety protocols makes sense.

We don’t live in an ideal world, so two scientists died a few decades back — after working with a mass of plutonium. (October 16, 2016)

BBC’s Top Eight ‘Science Stories’


(From PA, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(“Artist’s impression of two neutron stars colliding”
(BBC News))

“Eight amazing science stories of 2017”
(December 25, 2017)

“It was a year of endings and beginnings: the plucky Cassini spacecraft’s 13-year-long mission reached its finale, while the fledgling field of gravitational wave astronomy bagged the catastrophic collision of two dead stars.

“BBC News looks back on eight of the biggest science and environment stories of 2017….”

One of the “environment” stories is more political than scientific.

Inevitable, I suppose, given the remarkable devotion to a particular view that most traditional media exhibits.

America withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement is significant, particularly for folks following United Nations news. There is a ‘science’ angle to the story, since the Paris agreement depends on belief in a particular analysis of some climate data.

There’s been other interesting ‘environment’ news, too. Some may be significant. A few items involve the Paris agreement, but don’t encourage blind faith in it. (August 11, 2017; November 17, 2017; February 17, 2017)

Other than including a piece that’s much more politics than science, I think the BBC News editors did a pretty good job with their ‘top eight’ list:

  1. Star crash
  2. Cassini’s final bow
  3. Paris pull-out
  4. Multiple “Earths”
  5. Recent relative
  6. Dark skies
  7. Visitor from beyond
  8. Giant iceberg

I generally don’t make lists: mostly because it’s hard to see what will be most important as time passes, or pick one or two categories. Besides, it would take time. I’m almost always looking at what’s happening ‘now’ and what may be coming.

But since I see one of the BBC News ‘science’ stories was mostly political, I figured I should suggest a few alternatives. That comes later.

Real Issues

About items 3 and 8, “Paris pull-out” and “Giant iceberg,” I’m as concerned about environmental issues as I was in the 1960s.

I thought fouling the air and water we need was a bad idea then, and still do. My opinion of activism’s lunatic fringe hasn’t changed much either.

I’ve become interested in what’s currently called “climate change.” The coming ice age was more of a science geek thing in my youth: fun, but not significant. (January 20, 2017)

I see collecting and analyzing data about Earth’s climate as a good idea. Acting on part of what we’re learning, not so much.

Thinking we should take good care of this world isn’t even even close to being in a blind panic over the crisis du jour, or denying that problems exist.

I have some respect for folks who take a deep breath and think before acting, or whose ‘environmental activism’ includes other concerns.

Berta Caceres’s main concern was defending the culture and rights of Lenca.

She insisted that folks who owned and lived on land should be consulted before it was used as a site for power plants. That resulted in her being called an environmental activist, and got her killed. (August 11, 2017)

Any ‘top’ list tends to be subjective. Even those involving strictly quantifiable information. Someone decides the subject and criteria.

Some Answers, Many Questions

I’d have picked the whole gravitational astronomy field as a ‘top’ item.

Three scientists won the year’s Nobel prize in physics for the first solid detection. That’s huge news for folks interested in astronomy and physics.

We’ve detected more gravitational wave events since then, including a set from colliding neutron stars.

We’re learning that some models for colliding objects were a pretty good fit with observations. We’re also collecting an intriguing number of new questions, which is just as satisfying. Maybe more.

Quite a few folks, scientists included, realize that we don’t know everything. I think finding new questions is at least as important as answering old ones.

We won’t learn what the rest of what this wonder-filled universe holds, if we don’t know what we’re looking for. Or at least have a clue.

I think our first ‘look’ at the gravitational wave spectrum is on a par with Galileo’s telescope. (October 20, 2017; October 3, 2017; June 2, 2017; June 2, 2017)

In importance, anyway. We still can’t get gravitational wave ‘images.’ I’m mildly surprised that I haven’t found any discussion of how to make that work. Not informed ones, at any rate. I suppose it’s early days. Just detecting gravitational waves has been a challenge.

A Few More ‘Big Deals in Science’

There’s no shortage of candidates for ‘top science stories’ lists. Quite a bit has happened in the last year.

In the last century, for that matter. (November 3, 2017)

Some developments will be more significant that others. Folks living a few centuries from now will almost certainly put the first gravitational wave observatories in their ‘top’ lists.

Recent quantum entanglement research may or may not be as important as efforts to detect luminiferous aether with Michelson-Morley interferometers. (October 6, 2017)

What we’ve learned by December 31, 2517 will help sort out what’s significant and what’s not so much in my ‘big deals in science, 2017’ list:

Oops

Weather modification was a very promising field from the 1940s to early 1970s. Expecting an end of droughts and destructive storms wasn’t unreasonable.

There were setbacks, of course, including a modified hurricane making a U-turn.

Scientists were allowed to issue warnings, so only one person died. It’s one too many, but the death toll could have been much higher. That was in 1947. (November 10, 2017)

Learning that commoners won’t panic if told there’s danger coming didn’t quite sink in, though. It took a remarkably lethal tornado outbreak in 1953 for the Weather Service to get reorganized — with new rules. We do learn. Slowly. (August 11, 2017)

The 1947 hurricane test may not have made the storm turn around. A recent analysis suggests that the altered parts of the storm may not have stayed altered long enough to make a difference. As I keep saying, we’re still learning.

I haven’t heard of any weather modification experiments on more than a very small scale, or in remote locations, since 1972. That’s when the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences tested a newish technique on a storm in the Upper Midwest.

The storm then destroyed part of a Rapid City, South Dakota, suburb. About 238 folks were killed. Some bodies were never recovered.

American courts eventually decided that there wasn’t enough evidence to prove legal responsibility, but scientists got very careful after that. (May 26, 2017)

I think we will, eventually, learn to control weather on a regional and global scale. We’ll also be deciding what we think Earth’s ‘normal’ climates should be.

But since we’re living in the only currently available place for field experiments, I think we should learn a great deal more before the first test.

“…As a Grain from a Balance….”

The lesson from weather modification experiments and taking shortcuts while handling plutonium is not, I think, that we must shun tampering with ‘things man was not supposed to know.’

No matter how much we learn, I’m certain that we won’t learn ‘too much.’ I don’t think that’s possible, or that we’ll run out of new puzzles.

God’s universe is vast and ancient, and keeps looking bigger and older as we learn more.

We’re born with a thirst for knowledge, and live in a wonder-filled universe. Using what we learn wisely is important. So is seeking knowledge.

More science in 2017:

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Celebrating Ever Since

Posted on December 25, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

We hear quite a bit of Luke 2 during the Christmas Masses, including this:

“Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields and keeping the night watch over their flock.
“The angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were struck with great fear.
“The angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
“For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord.
“And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.'”
(Luke 2:8–12)

It shows up in “A Charlie Brown Christmas” too, and I talked about that yesterday.

The shepherds went to see what was going on, and liked what they saw. So did the magi and Simeon. Jesus didn’t stay in the manger, of course.

He grew up, ate with sinners, gave Pharisees and Sadducees conniptions, was executed and buried.

Our Lord stopped being dead a few days later, and we’ve been celebrating ever since. We’ve also been sharing the best news humanity’s ever had.

I’ve talked about that before:

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Bah! Humbug?

Posted on December 24, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

‘Tis the season to kvetch about Christmas: because it’s too commercial, too religious, or whatever. I won’t do that.

I’ll look at why we celebrate instead. Also Scrooge and “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

Besides, I think enjoying the holiday and doing what I say I believe makes more sense. Although the day is special because we celebrate our Lord’s birthday, I like many of my culture’s secular holiday traditions, including “I’ll be Home for Christmas” and “Deck the Halls.”

I even like Christmas specials. Some of them. But they don’t show the big picture.

What “the true meaning of Christmas” is depends on which Christmas special I pick.

I’ve heard that giving is better than getting, folks should be nice to each other, and being with family is important. I think those are good ideas. But “the true meaning of Christmas?” Not exactly.

“A Charlie Brown Christmas” got it right.

Linus told Charlie Brown “what Christmas is all about” by quoting Luke 2:8–14.

His translation used somewhat old-fashioned and formal language — “And there were in the same country shepherds….”

It’s what I grew up with, and I like it. I also like “Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields and keeping the night watch over their flock…” from today’s “The New American Bible, Revised Edition.”

Either way, the angel has the same message. Our savior, Messiah, and Lord has been born. It’s “…good news of great joy that will be for all the people….”

As Linus said — “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”

Linus didn’t include the last phrase in Luke 2:14: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

That wasn’t, and isn’t, unusual: even in more ‘religious’ specials. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because folks aren’t comfortable with “…peace to those on whom his favor rests.” God’s peace isn’t about the Almighty playing favorites.

God loves each of us, but Luke 2:14’s peace won’t happen unless we let it. That’s another topic, for another post.

“A Charlie Brown Christmas:” Breaking Traditions

Folks at the network thought “A Charlie Brown Christmas” would be a disaster. I think they had a point.

Audiences arguably expect particular styles for different sorts of shows.

This one broke the rules.

Its tone, pacing, music and animation were ‘wrong’ for a Christmas special. It didn’t even have a laugh track.

The network folks apparently didn’t mind Linus reciting from Luke 2.

The show’s producers were the ones who felt having someone quote the Bible might be too controversial for television. This was in the mid-1960s, so I think they had a point, too.

Biblese-laden epics very loosely based on Old Testament stories were on their way out. That wasn’t the only change in progress. (August 14, 2017)

I think quite a few Americans were tired of Christians cherry-picking Biblical snippets to bolster their opinions. I certainly was. (July 4, 2017; November 15, 2016)

The ‘God agrees with me’ attitude wasn’t new. And it’s not limited to Christianity. Variations on the ‘Mother Nature agrees with me’ viewpoints may be more fashionable these days.

I think both are silly, at best. (September 22, 2017; September 10, 2017; August 4, 2017; July 21, 2017)

Despite network and production concerns, viewers liked “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” A lot. It’s been a holiday tradition ever since.

“The Muppet Christmas Carol” may become another viewing tradition, or not. It did a pretty good job of following the original’s story. So did “Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol.”

Scrooge had a Point — Nietzsche, Too

‘Christmas Carol’ television specials don’t consistently stick to the original story or dialogue. But some do. Particularly Scrooge’s “bah! Humbug!”

“…’A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!’…

“…’Bah!’ said Scrooge, ‘Humbug!’ …

“…’Christmas a humbug, uncle!’ said Scrooge’s nephew. ‘You don’t mean that, I am sure?’

“…’I do,’ said Scrooge. ‘Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You’re poor enough.’

“‘Come, then,’ returned the nephew gaily. ‘What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You’re rich enough.’

“Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, ‘Bah!’ again; and followed it up with ‘Humbug.’

“‘Don’t be cross, uncle!’ said the nephew.

“‘What else can I be,’ returned the uncle, ‘when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ’em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,’ said Scrooge indignantly, ‘every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!’…”
(“A Christmas Carol,” Charles Dickens (1843) via Project Gutenberg)

“Humbug” goes back at least to the 1700s. It’s almost certainly from some European language: maybe Italian, but my guess is that it’s from a Germanic language. It means deceptive talk or behavior, or hypocrites.1

I think Scrooge had a point, that we live in “a world of fools.” I don’t have his attitude, partly because I can’t love my neighbor and want to boil him in his own pudding. I’ll get back to that.

I think Nietzsche had a point, too. Sometimes the “monsters” aren’t the only threat:

“Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird….”

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster….”
(“Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146; Friedrich Nietzsche)

I think Nietzsche’s view of Christianity wasn’t entirely accurate. But what I’m learning about his era helps me sympathize with him, a bit. (June 30, 2017; May 12, 2017)

I like to think that some venom-spitting folks, Christian and otherwise, mean well. But it’s a bad idea. (October 29, 2017; June 18, 2017; May 7, 2017)

Good intentions won’t make bad behavior okay. They can make personal long-term consequences less severe, but “the end does not justify the means.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1750, 1752, 1759)

Like Nietzche, Dickens saw a serious disconnect between what Christianity should be about, and how Christians are. He also didn’t think organized religion was a good idea.

I don’t agree, but living in 19th-century England wouldn’t have helped his attitude. That was not one of Western civilization’s shining hours.

“The Whole Law and the Prophets”

Dickens certainly wasn’t Catholic. But his views of personal and social responsibility weren’t far from what the Church says.

“‘Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!'”
(“A Christmas Carol,” Charles Dickens (1843))

He apparently also understood that each of us have limited opportunities to do good. Or not. (Catechism, 1007, 1021–1037)

Jesus told us that loving God and neighbors is “the whole law and the prophets.” So is seeing everyone as a neighbor. (Matthew 22:36–40, Mark 12:28–31; Matthew 5:43–44; Mark 12:28–31; Luke 10:25–30; Catechism, 1825)

Social justice, the Catholic version, means acting like what Jesus said matters. (Catechism, 1928–1942)

More, mostly Christmas and being Catholic:

1 About deceptive nonsense, dishonest gibberish, a hoax, or something like that:

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Off the Rails

Posted on December 22, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

About 78 folks were on Amtrak Cascades passenger train 501 Monday morning. They’ll be late. At best.

I’ll be looking at what happened, new and old technology. Also how I see change and progress.

Changing Tech, Changing Rules

The South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company’s new locomotive, Best Friend of Charleston, took passengers “on the wings of wind at the speed of fifteen to twenty-five miles per hour.” (Charleston Courier (December 29, 1830))

For a few months.

This was rapid transit in the 1830s.

We’re not sure why the locomotive’s fireman tied down the steam pressure release valve on June 17, 1831.

Some say he didn’t like its whistle, others that he was building a head of steam for higher performance. He wasn’t available for interviews later. The blast wave, or maybe shrapnel, killed him when the boiler exploded.

Altering pressure valves to boost performance was common practice in the early 1830s.

Tamper-proof valves eventually made boilers less likely to explode.

So did changing the rules for using the tech.

I’d like to think that prudence has become more common over the last 18 decades.

But I’ve noticed little or no change human wisdom over the last several millennia.

The good news, I think, is that we’re not getting more foolhardy. And we’re learning how to use or deal with our strengths and weaknesses.

We still change the rules, or make new ones, as our tech and circumstances change. (February 10, 2017; February 5, 2017)

“Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions.”
(Mark Twain or someone else)

Running Late

I think technology is useful, and can be improved. But it’s not foolproof. Even the best-designed tech can’t prevent daft decisions.

For example, the Granville-Paris Express had been running late on October 22, 1895.

The engineer apparently wanted to make up for lost time by approaching a Paris terminal at about 40 kilometers an hour.

That’s 31 miles an hour, more or less: pretty close to urban speed limits around here.

It’s not overly fast, when you’re driving a car on dry pavement.

A train with nearly a dozen units is another matter.

Tracks ended in the terminal. Stopblocks, the sort of barrier called buffer stops in England, would have stopped a train that was barely moving.

The Granville–Paris Express went through the stopblocks and across a concourse. The locomotive eventually broke through a wall and fell to the pavement.

Four folks on the train and two outside the station were hurt. A woman who had been filling in for her husband while he collected evening editions was killed.

Two members of the train’s crew were fined: the engineer 50 francs for excessive speed, one of the guards 25 francs for being preoccupied with paperwork.

That’s not quite as trivial as it might seem. Historicalstatistics.org’s Historical Currency Converter (test version 1.0) says 50 1895 francs would buy about as much as $291.29 USD in 2015. But it still seems like pretty small change to me.1

Rushing to Help


(From The Seattle Times, used w/o permission.)

“These are some of the people who rushed to help survivors of the Amtrak train derailment”
Evan Bush, Steve Miletich; The Seattle Times (December 19, 2017)

“With Amtrak train cars dangling from a bridge above, soldiers, an Eagle Scout and even a neurosurgeon materialized amid Monday’s train crash to pull people from the gnarled metal wreckage, help with triage and provide comfort to victims whose lives were suddenly twisted and tossed into chaos.

Detective Chris Bailey, of the Steilacoom Public Safety Department, said nurses and doctors rushed from personal vehicles to help, men and women in business attire appearing with latex gloves or stethoscopes.

Witness Greg Mukai saw a half-dozen soldiers rushing from vehicles into the fray just after the crash, asking motorists for first-aid equipment. Bailey saw a soldier climb up a train car that was dangling from the bridge to help people get out….”

Folks don’t always respond well to unexpected stress, like seeing a train fall onto an Interstate. But when I start looking past ‘top news stories,’ I see pieces like this.

I figure that’s because wanting to help others is written into each of us.

It’s part of natural law: principles that haven’t and won’t change. How we deal with natural law depends on individual and cultural differences, and what era we’re living in. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1954–1960)

I’ve mentioned the idea of reciprocity we call the Golden Rule a few times. (June 4, 2017)

Each of us has humanity’s “transcendent dignity.” (Catechism, 1929)

Books have been written about natural law, but the basics are simple. I should love God, love my neighbor, see everyone as my neighbor; and act accordingly. (Matthew 22:36–40, 5:43–44, 7:12; Mark 12:28–31; Mark 12:28–31; Luke 10:25–30; Catechism, 1825, 1929)

Simple, and anything but easy.

Numbers and Questions


(From Reuters, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)

“Amtrak Washington train crash: Investigators focus on speed”
(December 19, 2017)

“A US passenger train that derailed, killing three people, was travelling at 80mph (130km/h) on a curve with a speed limit of 30mph, data from the train’s rear engine indicates.

It happened in Washington state during rush hour on Monday and officials say 72 people were taken to hospital.

A number of those injured are reported to be in a serious condition.

Authorities said all carriages had now been searched, but would not rule out a rise in the number of dead….”

This could have been much worse. Apparently seven vehicles were under the train when it fell. I’m surprised that nobody on Interstate 5 was killed. Injured, yes, but still alive a day after the incident.

I’ve heard different numbers for how many were hospitalized. That’s no surprise, since folks were taken to quite a few medical facilities. In their position, I’d rather have getting me to medicos a higher priority than filling out paperwork.

It’s still bad: for folks killed when the train derailed, those who are hospitalized, their families and friends. No pressure, but prayer couldn’t hurt.

It’s Not Simple


(From BBC News, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)

The Amtrak Cascades derailed at 7:33 Monday morning. When I checked on Tuesday, we still weren’t sure how many folks were in the train when it landed on Interstate 5.

At least three folks were killed in the wreck. That number could go up. Officials said as much, and it makes sense. Some survivors are in bad shape.

We’re pretty sure there aren’t any bodies, living or otherwise, inside what’s left of the train.

I believe it, but figure someone might have been on the ground when the cars stopped moving. Maybe someone landed in the trees, or managed to walk that far.

An NTSB Go Team is doing an on-site investigation.

They said it’d be wrapped up in a week or so. We probably won’t see more-or-less final conclusions for months, maybe a year. This sort of accident is pretty much the opposite of simple, so I don’t mind if the NTSB doesn’t jump to conclusions.

We’re learning that PTC, a new safety technology, was being installed in the train’s locomotive, but wasn’t ready for use yet. That doesn’t explain why the train was moving more than twice as fast as it should.

Someone with NTSB said they’d been recommending PTC be installed on all trains. Also that Congress had changed the deadline for putting their ‘use PTC’ legislation in effect — from the end of 2015 to the end of 2018.

I don’t know why the deadline changed. Maybe technical issues, too. The price tag is something like $22,000,000,000.2

Speed


(From Wall Street Journal, used w/o permission.)
(Amtrak’s Cascades: an unscheduled stop on its first run over the Point Defiance Bypass.)

“Three Are Killed as Amtrak Train Derails in Washington State”
Ted Mann, Alejandro Lazo, Zusha Elinson; Wall Street Journal (December 19, 2017)

“A half-hour behind schedule Monday morning on its inaugural ride along a new route, an Amtrak train carrying 77 passengers derailed on a tight curve south of Seattle, sending train cars into the woods and onto a highway below, killing three people and injuring dozens….”

“Derailed Amtrak Train Was Traveling at 80 MPH in a 30 MPH Zone”
Nour Malas, Zusha Elinson; Wall Street Journal (December 19, 2017)

“The Amtrak train that derailed in Washington state Monday was traveling at 80 miles an hour in a zone with a posted speed limit of 30 mph, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board said….”

Investigators know how fast the train was going, thanks to an onboard data recorder. I’ve read that the actual number is 81.1 miles an hour, so 80 mph seems like a reasonable approximation.

Other simplifications I’ve seen in news coverage don’t seem so reasonable.

Quite a few were repeating the assertion that the train was going 80 miles an hour in a 79 mph zone. It wasn’t entirely inaccurate. Amtrak Cascades had been on a 79 mile an hour zone before derailing.

Posted speed limit where the accident happened is 30 miles on hour.

The Monday morning Cascades commute might have made local news, anyway.

Amtrak Cascades passenger train 501 was the inaugural southbound revenue service run on the new-and-improved Point Defiance Bypass.

Like the other BBC News article said, the train was about a half-hour behind schedule when it left the tracks. That may or may not help explain why it was going more than two and a half times the speed limit.

Wanting to make up of for lost time might be a strong motivation for someone on the train or in managemt who didn’t want bad publicity.

That’s speculation on my part. I don’t know what was happening in anyone’s head that morning. All that’s clear at the moment is that folks are dead and injured, and we’ve got more questions than answers.

I’m particularly curious about why the line’s new safety tech wasn’t used, and why the train was going so very fast. If either happened because of someone’s decision, that raises more questions.

I also don’t know how often speeding trains leave the tracks these days.

Maybe a non-fatal Cascades derailment a few months back on the old coastal route wasn’t unusual, or was a coincidence. That train’s engineer was suspended without pay. (Molly Solomon, OPB News (July 6, 2017))

Tech


(From Dennis Bratland, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(The current Amtrak Cascades route is red.)

The idea behind the bypass was putting passenger and freight trains on different tracks.

It should have made shorter commutes possible. Safer, too, since the tracks now have PTC, positive train control. Or will, eventually.

I think PTC is a good idea, but it’s controversial. Some objections probably make sense.

I understand that Congress set their requirements in stone, so engineers and technicians can’t recommend changes that would improve performance. They can recommend, I suppose, but nobody’s going to take official notice. Congress has spoken.

It’s new tech, so I’m not at all convinced that legislators in Washington understand how it works, and what’s possible.

I’ll get back to how I see PTC and human error.

Robber Barons


(From Punch, via Victorian Web, used w/o permission.)
(“How to Insure Against Railway Accidents. Tie a couple of Directors à la Mazeppa to every engine that starts a train.”
(John Leech, Punch, (March 26, 1853,p. 126))

Some folks were getting fed up with train wrecks and exploding boilers by the mid-19th century. We’re still sorting out whether blaming problems on some industrialists is reasonable. They’ve been called robber barons at least since 1859.

My own view is that laissez faire capitalism looks good on paper. So does full-bore socialism. The latter might work, in a society populated by intelligent bees or ants. For humans, not so much.

Knowing what I do about more-or-less well intentioned experiments with both, I’m not enthusiastic about either.

That’s something I didn’t need to change when I became a Catholic, although I learned that the Catholic version of social justice makes sense. (Tag: social justice)

Catholics like Luigi Taparelli apparently coined “social justice” — in the 1840s. Taparelli’s “Civiltà Cattolica” says that capitalist and socialist theories don’t pay enough attention to ethics. I think he’s right. (September 25, 2016)

Among the many things I like about being Catholic is that many of us are troublemakers. The good kind. (September 4, 2016)

Rules and Progress

America wasn’t the only place learning to deal with steam tech. That photo shows what happened in Oslo during the 1890s.

My country’s Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 was mostly about curbing monopolies, but arguably helped the ball rolling on regulating rail tech.

We’ve tried nationalizing railroads and deregulating since then, and assorted safety rules.3

I’m no great fan of regulations for their own sake.

But I think we need some sort of authority. I’m not blind to flaws in America’s system, but think it works pretty well: for us. Folks have used other forms over the millennia.

As long as we’re satisfied with a system and it supports the common good, I don’t see a problem with any system. (Catechism, 1897–1917, 1957)

I don’t think we’ll have a ‘perfect’ government a thousand years from now, or ten thousand.

But I am convinced we can do better than any of today’s, or those we’ve tried. We keep trying. With varying degrees of success. And making progress. Slowly. (July 9, 2017; May 21, 2017; October 30, 2016)

Human Error


(From Xnatedawgx, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(A locomotive near Anaheim’s ARTIC.)

We’ve had mechanical train protection systems since the 19th century.

Train stops had arms by the track that went up when the system detected a train going through a red signal. Raised arms connected to valves on passing trains that controlled the brakes. Train stops didn’t start getting used widely until the early 20th century.

Positive Train Control, PTC, is a fairly new technology, and not on all rail systems. That lets folks point out that not many accidents have clearly been prevented by PTC.

It also hasn’t given technicians and engineers time to spot and fix bugs in the design. In any case, fixing the bugs might have to wait until Congress allows them to make changes.

Taking the option of racing through a low-speed zone out of a human operator’s control, makes sense to me.

Most humans, I think, generally prefer not being at the front of a train about to drop onto a road or into a river.

But sometimes our priorities get scrambled. I can understand wanting to make up for lost time. We can make really bad benefit/risk judgments when under stress.

I think humans have a place as vehicle operators, but not for tasks that rely more on responding to specific situations in a pre-determined way. One of our strengths, arguably, is coming up with new solutions to situations that nobody saw coming.

I’m not overly concerned about ‘trusting’ automatic systems, although I think having the option to override the system’s decision can be reassuring.

On the other hand, I’ve worked with AI and humans. We’re good for some tasks. But when something really daft happens, a 1968 film said it rather well:

“…It can only be attributable to human error….”
(HAL 9000, “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968))

A Basically Good Idea

I remember two incidents on BART, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system. It’s been used since 1972.

Trains being operated by AI were very new at the time. And controversial.

That may explain heavy news coverage of a ‘robot controlled’ train running off the end of rails during a test run.

Rather late in the cycle I found a very brief mention at the end of one article, about what caused the overrun. The human operator had taken the train out of AI control and didn’t slow down quite in time. Nobody got hurt, happily.

Another incident happened while I was living in San Francisco.

BART trains had two ‘front ends’ with space for an operator and big windows so folks could see that a human was ‘in control.’

And maybe to let the human operator see what was going on. It’s a basically good idea. Like I said, humans seem to be pretty good at dealing with the unexpected. Usually.

Reading local news, I saw an item about an operator who had noticed kids at one of the stations playing with his train’s doors. They’d gone in and out a few times when he decided to leave the train and tell them to stop. That, I think, made sense.

But the BART AI wasn’t nearly as smart as today’s systems can be. The operator was supposed to use a switch when leaving the train. The AI couldn’t ‘see’ whether a human operator was onboard or not otherwise.

This time the operator left the train without using the switch. As soon as the AI noticed that nobody was blocking the doors, it took the train to its next stop.

The human operator tried, unsuccessfully, to catch the train. What he’d have done if he’d succeeded, I don’t know. I gather that the BART AI wasn’t equipped or programmed to check for pursuing train operators.

That train arrived at the next stop with no incident. Humans at BART control had most likely noticed what happened, and had a substitute driver ready to board the train there. I don’t know what happened at the errant operator’s next performance review.

How I see technology and dealing with change:

1 Wrecks and explosions:

2 The Amtrak Cascades derailment, mostly:

3 Rules and history:

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Rejoicing Anyway

Posted on December 17, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

If I thought my faith depended on feeling cheerful, I’d be worried.

Since I’m a Catholic, I think faith is willingly and consciously embracing “the whole truth that God has revealed.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 142–150)

Faith is easier when my emotions are in sync with my reason. So is acting as if what I believe matters. Emotions can tell me that something needs attention, but “…conscience is a law of the mind….” (Catechism, 1777–1782)

Believing won’t do much good unless I love God and my neighbor, and see everyone as my neighbor. As Jesus said, it’s “the whole law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:37–40)

Feelings and Quirks

I haven’t been feeling all that cheerful lately: hardly surprising since I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in over a week.

The last two nights were as close an approximation as I’ve achieved. Maybe tonight will be better.

The good news is that the family hasn’t had a major medical incident over the last week or so. Stress can help folks experience insomnia. “Help?” Never mind.

I’m still dealing with habits and response patterns developed during decades of depression. That gets me back to faith, feelings, and making sense. Sort of.

Depression, the sort I still deal with, is a disorder; not a choice. There’s a ‘spiritual’ angle to it, but ‘exorcising demon depression’ doesn’t make sense.

Taking care of my health, within reason, does. (November 26, 2017; November 19, 2017; October 8, 2017; May 7, 2017)

Depression isn’t my only psychiatric issue. PTSD has been part of the mix since I was 12. Today’s parents or family doctors often spot signs of autism spectrum long before kids reach their teens.

Add congenital hip dysplasia, and by some standards I’m a mess. (November 19, 2017; March 19, 2017; October 16, 2016)

“Rejoice Always”

This Sunday’s second reading has good advice: more like an instruction, actually.

“Brothers and sisters:
Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing.
In all circumstances give thanks,
for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus….”
(Thessalonians 5:16–24)

I quoted the first part in September. (September 24, 2017)

Psalms 118:24 and Philippians 4:4 say that rejoicing is a good idea, too.

I don’t feel like it sometimes. Physical and psychiatric issues could seem like excuses for griping, grousing and grumbling. But I can remember reasons for rejoicing, no matter where my emotions are at the moment.

Living in this wonder-packed universe is near the top of my list. So is the best news humanity’s ever had. God loves each of us, and wants to adopt us. (John 3:17; Ephesians 1:3–5; Catechism, 52, 1825)

“Pray Without Ceasing”

I’ll probably get back to prayer and all that, but not today. That may wait until I’m more nearly awake.

I can, however, say something about prayer. It’s a gift of grace, and something I can’t do unless I decide it’s worth the effort. (Catechism, 2725)

Prayer is also a battle against attitudes I’ve learned from snags and snares dating from when time did not yet exist. My own shortcomings, too. (Catechism, 391–395, 2725–2728)

More-or-less-related posts:

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