Why do the really big catastrophes happen? The earthquakes, the financial crashes, and even the outbreak of the First World War. In this episode we dive into the weird world of complexity theory.

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Mark Buchanan's Ubiquity can be found at https://www.amazon.com/Ubiquity-Catastrophes-Happen-Mark-Buchanan/dp/0609809989

This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.

The aircraft crashes that changed the world of aviation. And the reason aircraft windows aren't square.

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A number of books cover the crash of the aircraft, but Henry Petroski's To Engineer is Human is one of the best: https://www.amazon.com/Engineer-Human-Failure-Successful-Design/dp/0679734163

There are a number of documentaries on YouTube, including: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68XH9r4FyNs

 

This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.

On 1 August 2007 at 6:05 pm, during rush hour traffic, the I35-W Highway Bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota collapsed into the Mississippi River.

We’ll look at how a bridge could suddenly collapse after 40 years of service. And we’ll ask was there an issue with design, or was there abnormal bridge loading at the time of the failure? Or was there both?

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The National Transportation Safety Board's report can be found at https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/HAR0803.pdf

A photograph of the loading on the bridge can be found in the NTSB failure report on page 26, see figure 16. 

 

This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.

Did the Hanging Garden of Babylon actually exist or was it myth?

And why bother talking about it in this podcast?

Because apart from whether or not the Garden existed, or more importantly where it was located, the story of its history is fascinating.

But even more fascinating is the extraordinary engineering achievement that may have underpinned its very existence. 

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A sketch of the Garden, as well as the bas relief depicting the garden at Ninevah, can be found here: http://www.archeolog-home.com/pages/content/ninive-iraq-the-hanging-gardens-of-babylon.html

A detailed account of the discovery of the ruins at Jerwan can be found here: https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/oip24.pdf

A link to Dr Dalley's book can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Hanging-Garden-Babylon-Elusive/dp/0198728840/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Details of Jason Ur's work on declassified satellite imagery can be found here: http://scholar.harvard.edu/jasonur/pages/hollow-ways-0

My article on the subject can be found in The Structural Engineer magazine here: https://www.istructe.org/journal/volumes/volume-94-(2016)/issue-7/engineering-the-hanging-garden-of-babylon 

This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.

With doctors saying her husband is dying, Emily Warren Roebling sets out on a path to see the great bridge through to completion.

Read more at https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/52fa7d_6775ee5cee5c476d87e658bdb812cb9e.pdf.

This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.

The greatest engineering challenge of the age. A male dominated profession. One woman.

Emily Warren Roebling.

Read more at https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/52fa7d_88f884ef141648d59ae81f5d8c0dee25.pdf.

This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.

The collapse of the Tacoma Narrows suspension bridge is one of the world's most recognised structural failures.

Were there any warnings from history that this failure could have occurred, and more importantly, if failures like this had ever happened at the past - why did we as a profession forget the lessons learned?

Footage of the bridge collapse can be viewed on YouTube https://youtu.be/j-zczJXSxnw 

This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.

The tragic crash of the Virgin Galactic spacecraft carries lessons for all of us. Do failures happen because humans make mistakes? Or do they happen because we design systems that ultimately fail us as humans?

Detailed article on the disaster can be found at https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/52fa7d_155a03ee1ac745c7a6edd76118a71e16.pdf

The National Transportation Safety Board's report can be found at http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR1502.pdf

The National Transportation Safety Board video of the seconds leading up to the disaster can be found at http://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Pages/2015_spaceship2_BMG.aspx 

This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.

What does a stadium collapse, baseball, fire fighting, and taking a shower have in common?

In this episode we explore the concept of expertise and ask does it have a dark side? Indeed, can failures sometimes occur precisely because we possess expertise?

But before all that we'll join a group of firefighters about to step into an obscure valley in Montana in 1949...

Sean delivered this presentation to approximately 550 delegates attending the Queensland Mining Industry Health and Safety Conference in August 2016. The title of the presentation was “Wedded to Our Tools – Why Expertise Can Hold Us back”.

Look out for the next episode of the Brady Heywood Podcast in mid January 2017.

Detailed information on the Mann Gulch fire can be found at https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/52fa7d_3daddbe131be4dd48103f16aeff52d6c.pdf and  https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/52fa7d_3b0c3157e10d4b89bb16b200d58a049d.pdf

This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.

What is not well known about the West Gate Bridge collapse in Melbourne, Australia in 1970 was that it was only one of a string of similar bridge failures that happened around the world.

The failures highlighted that the engineering profession’s understanding of these bridge types was clearly lacking. In Melbourne the profession paid the ultimate price: 35 fatalities.

This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.