The Golden Ratio

This is a post on the golden ratio. I originally write my posts in Word, but I can't export this with the equations by just copying, so I've been trying to find a way to upload it.

Here's a link to view it from Google Drive.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3HwYFUo28k2UWFBejlIQzRRTWM

Thanks for the patience in letting me get this to work, I hope the none of you who read this blog will like this. It's extra long. Only nine or so pages.

The Ides of March

The Ides of March. Whoo! Someone died! Let's celebrate it. Right?

WRONG. The Ides of March are more than a death day. Find out right here.

A famous date throughout pop culture, the Ides of March have existed for a lot longer than the most famous usage: of Caesar's assassination. Many remember the iconic Shakespeare line: “beware the ides of March,” spoken by the soothsayer to Caesar, and true, Shakespeare made the term popular. But what are the ides of March?

Firstly, the term ‘ides’ itself comes from the lunar calendar. The earliest Roman calendar, made by King Romulus, has March (called Martius in Rome) as the first month of the year. The months, instead of being divided into days, were divided by markers instead: Kalends (Kal) were the first days in a month, Nones (Non) were the 5th or 7th of a month depending on the month, and Ides (Id) were the 13th or 15th day in a month, once again depending on the month.

The reason the ides of March were so important back then was because they were the first full moon in any year. Thus, later in the Roman republic, people began to celebrate on the ides of March in the form of a New Year's festival, a mile from Rome on the shore of the Tiber River. There, normal frivolities occured, cheap wine, food, music, and sacrifices to the gods, especially to the deity Anna Perenna, for a happy and prosperous new year. This essentially was a direct ancestor to the modern practice of celebrating New Years.

Caesar ties in with this all almost perfectly. In 44 B.C. he was assassinated by being stabbed by fellow Roman senators, due to him being declared Dictator Perpetuus (Dictator Forever).

One thing to note is that just 2 years earlier, in 46 B.C. Julius Caesar changed the calendar after consulting Sosigenes, an Alexandrian astronomer. He added ten days, bringing the total up to 355, and made the first day of the year January first. He was also the one who said there would be a leap year every four years.

But is Caesar’s assassination the only reason to fear the ides? Has anything else happened on that day? Surprisingly, the answer is yes.

A plethora of problems has plagued the date. (Woot! Language Arts finally came in use!)

In 1360, a French raiding party began a 48 hour spree of adulterous crimes and pillaging in Southern England. This was so serious that King Edward III stopped his own spree of raiding.

In 1889, a cyclone left over 200 people dead in Samoa. It destroyed six ships: three English and three German. This did have a flip side, however. It averted a possible war, as the ships were for a show of power.

In 1917, Czar Nicholas II abdicated his throne. This ended a 304 year dynasty of czars.

In 1952, a world record rainfall collection was achieved, when 24 hour rainfall accumulated up to 73.62 inches over the Indian Ocean island of La Réunion.

A more somber fact is that in 1988, NASA announced that the ozone layer above the Northern Hemisphere was depleting three times as fast as previously predicted.

A slightly unrelated fact to the ides is that the kalends of a month are when bills are issued, just like Roman times.

Resources used in the production of this short history are

http://www.history.com/news/ask-history/what-are-the-ides-of-march

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/top-ten-reasons-to-beware-the-ides-of-march-8664107/

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/ides1.html

Electric Cars

For those in touch with the auto world, electric cars are all the rage for development. Even those not directly interested in cars know about the energy friendly, environment caring cars that drive on electricity.

This topic surely isn’t as exciting as self driving cars, but the essence is more or less the same. Electric cars are meant to reduce hassle: they don’t emit greenhouse gases, don’t waste a expendable fuel source, and effectively lower our carbon footprint.

Electric cars are different from hybrid cars. Hybrid cars are those that use gasoline as a primary fuel source and use electric motors to improve efficiency. These just aren’t the same as electric cars, cars driven solely on electricity.

The image shown below is a comparison between electric and gasoline cars.

The major downfalls of electric cars are that they can’t drive for more than a hundred miles, and take a lot longer to recharge than gasoline-driven cars.

EV (electric vehicle) advocates claim that a hundred miles are already a decent amount, saying that the normal travels of most people rarely exceed the total.

As another counter to this statement, newer cars have mile ranges up to 200 miles. Even though the cost of the car goes up by increasing the range, the price of cents per mile will steadily go down: as battery prices are dropping.

Due to the fact that only thirty or so electric cars exist in the market currently, another issue is the lack of customer choice: but this is a hurdle that will soon be overcome by the market.

Demand for these cars are going up as well: as shown in figure 2, the projections for sales go up exponentially.

The main part to these cars is their battery. Electric cars have a rechargeable battery inside, that can be charged at home or at a dock. There are two parts to this: the type of battery and the type of charger.

According to the White House in a post, “The lack of affordable, highly functional batteries has been a particularly high barrier to the widespread adoption of electric vehicles.” Most agree with this statement, and development is under way for a better battery.

The precursor of modern car batteries came from Alessandro Volta in 1800. This was a container filled alternately with copper and zinc plates, separated by cardboard plates dipped in salt water. This battery ensured a steady flow of electrical current, by creating a chemical reaction, forcing the zinc plates, negative anodes, to release an electron for the copper disk, a positive cathode, to catch.

After two centuries, it is no wonder the battery hasn’t remained the same. With modern technology, the battery has been upgraded, but the basic principle has stayed the same. Now, batteries use lithium ions. The ion is shuttled back and forth from the anode and cathode, and is called a lithium ion battery.

The lithium ion battery provides a higher energy density than previous batteries. Compared with the nickel-metal hydride battery used in the Toyota Prius, for example, a lithium-ion battery of the same weight and volume would increase energy density two to three times, says Dr. Srinivasan.

Dr. Venkat Srinivasan is the manager of the Battery for Automotive Transportation Technologies Program, an Energy Department-supported program managed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley.

Jeffrey P. Chamberlain, head of the Electrochemical Energy Storage group at the Argonne National Laboratory, a lab near Chicago sponsored by the Energy Department, says that all vehicles available with electricity as a primary power source use some form of lithium-ion battery, and that these types of battery will be prevalent for at least the next two decades.

Researchers are experimenting with bonding lithium with other materials in the battery cathode. The materials used dictate the voltage and amount of lithium the cell can hold, and as both increase so does the energy efficiency for the overall cell, according to Dr. Srinivasan.

At Argonne National Laboratory, people are working with newer mixes of nickel, manganese, and cobalt for the cathode, as blending in different amounts and forming different structures has shown to double the efficiency, and, in turn, Argonne is offering patents for the material to various battery makers. According to Mr. Chamberlain, the result would be batteries “that squeeze more energy into a smaller package, are less expensive to make and last longer.”

Similar to changing the cathode, researchers at Argonne and other places are contemplating swapping the cathode for silicon, replacing the current carbon anode, as silicon will theoretically increase the amount of energy holdable tenfold.

This was as of 2011, and even as recently as 2015, these batteries have major limitations: scientists haven’t found an efficient way to get over the expanding properties of silicon: it can expand up to 300%.

According to Mr Chamberlain, to get over this hurdle, researchers are experimenting with blending silicon with other materials like graphite to try to find a balance to prevent expansion while increasing energy density.

These batteries, or rather, electric car batteries are the most expensive part of a car, easily racking up into the thousands. Due to this, manufacturers deem it competitive information: but, according to a study by the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, the prices for batteries have gone down by about 35% between 2014 and 15.

Looking at the graph (figure 3) the decrease in price is drastic.

According to a study by McKinsey & Company, “Despite that drop, battery costs continue to make EVs more costly than comparable ICE-powered variants. Current projections put EV battery pack prices below $190/kWh by the end of the decade, and suggest the potential for pack prices to fall below $100/kWh by 2030.”

The drop in mention is battery costs falling from ~1,000 per kWh in 2010 to ~$227 per kWh in 2016, according to McKinsey.

Basically, McKinsey doesn’t expect a real drop in prices, or at least no ~$100 per kWh battery to occur soon, even though Tesla has hinted at this possibility.

Now, these prices mentioned are for the entire package: both the battery pack and cells.

Batteries must also be charged for the car to actually drive. The battery is charged differently than most expect: the port is actually on the car itself. The appliance known as a ‘charger’ is in reality just a converter for AC to DC, allowing your electricity to feed a car. Its real name is an Electric Vehicle Service Equipment, or an EVSE, and all EV owners should own one. Like, seriously.

A general consensus between EV drivers is that chargers cost around 6-7 hundred dollars. Each EVSE can handle a specific amount of amps. The suggested amperage is 30, allowing approximately 30 miles from an hour of charge. This is like 15 amps will charge about 15 miles in an hour. There are two things to note from this, however, that 30 amp EVSEs need a circuit breaker of at least 40 amps, and that not all EVs will benefit from the faster charge, notable ones including the Nissan LEAF before the 2013 model.

It is essential that chargers are mobile, or rather movable, so that if needed, the car can be charged from somewhere else, as it decreases the cost of buying another one. The car should ideally be reached by the charger with some length of cord left over as well.

Most cords are at lengths of 15 to 25 feet in length, and increasing the amount of wire will also increase the cost.

Despite some minor setbacks, EVs have proven to be developing fast: they may be the tech breaking dependence ties on fossil fuels. They will continue to develop, and till then, the world will wait.

References used in the making of this article:

http://www.plugincars.com/ basic info, the various guides give great info.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/business/energy-environment/31BATTERIES.html On lithium ion batteries

http://newatlas.com/silicon-anode-performance-batteries/40058/

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1108199_how-much-have-electric-car-battery-costs-fallen-this-much

https://electrek.co/2017/01/30/electric-vehicle-battery-cost-dropped-80-6-years-227kwh-tesla-190kwh/

Figure 1: http://www.plugincars.com/electric-cars

Figure 2: http://www.plugincars.com/guide-electric-vehicles-and-the-smart-grid.html

Figure 3: http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/588287f4ee14b62b008b92d8-1200/20170120batteryprice.png

Ebola

Ebola is a disease transmitted by wild animals to people, and can spread from human to human as well. Occurring in major outbreaks scattered throughout history, the human race has finally managed to temporarily eradicate the spread of it.

Now, ebola is a serious disease. Outbreaks occur occasionally, and the disease first started in 1976, with an outbreak in both modern day South Sudan and in the DR of the Congo (that’s the Democratic Republic of the Congo, if you couldn’t tell). This is all well and good you may be thinking, how does this recent disease become so deadly?

Firstly, ebola’s case fatality rate is 50%. A case fatality rate is how many people will die infected with the disease, and is usually in the form of a percentage. This is just the average, some outbreaks can be as low as 25% or as high as 90%. 90%. That means that if you and nine other people have ebola, with that fatality rate, chances are that if any survive, only one person will (this is likely survive). Even the average is horrible. The average of 50% means that every other person infected with ebola will die. The lowest case fatality rate of 25% is slightly better.

Ebola can result in a large amount of fatalities fast. Being a major disease, many look towards a vaccine for a cure, but those people will look for a while. With no current listed vaccine, at least according to the WHO (World Health Organization), the disease is technically uncurable. There are currently two potential candidates for a vaccine, and the only way to currently stop the disease is by prolonging i.e. managing its symptoms.

The symptoms can be managed by a few methods: fluids and electrolytes, oxygen, blood pressure medication, blood transfusions, and treatment for other infections.

So far, symptoms have been mentioned, a lot, but not discussed. Symptoms include a high fever, headaches, joint and muscle aches, sore throats, weaknesses, stomach pains and a lack of appetite. These symptoms increase as the disease worsens. It can cause internal bleeding, and bleeding from the eyes, ears, and nose. Some may even vomit up blood, have bloody diarrhea and get rashes. Basically, it threatens you by blood loss.

The latest outbreak of ebola, that begun in March 2014, is the largest breakout since the first discovery of the disease in ‘76. In that outbreak, there were more deaths than all the others combined. This one spread by air, when travellers carried it by flying, and over land by some other travellers.

Many wonder what the pattern is is this disease. Much like other diseases, patterns are hard to discern, mainly due to just how diseases are transmitted. It isn’t a guaranteed transmission, not everyone will get the disease. This does work out and help us, as it means that fewer people are afflicted, but lessens the amount of information we can learn about the disease.

Currently, the known patterns in ebola are that severely affected countries are Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. All these countries have three common points: weak health systems, lack of human and infrastructural resources, and are all recently freed from conflict and political instability.

A slightly unique fact about this disease is that it can be transmitted by dead body. This disease cannot be transmitted by a person without any symptoms of ebola, even if they have the disease.

http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/ebola-fever-virus-infection

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/

Picture 1 credit: https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WzNVjxiTAXTfRnGmY21Zkd7hDXM=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2344418/risk_of_ebola_spread.0.png

Rolling Chairs?

Yes, this post is about rolling chairs. No, this isn't what I normally research, so please stick around for me to redeem myself. Someone told me to write about this, and, hey, it's not that bad.

Rolling chairs are the lazy man’s cheap form of transportation. They facilitate transportation from one place to another in comfort, with a free backrest, most of the time. But how do these miracle machines work? To understand this, you must first understand the workings of a chair itself.

Chairs have been essential to relaxation for years. The first depiction of chairs was in 7500 BC, used to seat gods, and they weren't much far from modern day chairs. Well, apart from comfort.

In 3000 BC, noted by Jenny Pynt (author of A History of Seating, 3000 BC to 2000 AD along with Joy Higgs) chairs began to be more efficient to sit in, they were modeled to make work easier. This is believed to be the first instance of chairs for working purposes, where the seats were curved with a concave seat, leaning forward to allow the worker to hammer more efficiently. The chairs were more of stools, however, three legged.

Chairs were kind of the lesser concern for humanity however, and as plague and wars plagued the lands (sounds weird) people stopped developing chairs. The only change was in grandeur: stools for squires and regal recliners for royalty. The temporary respite was a break up until the 1850s, when chair development turned around. Quite literally. In the 1850s two things happened: engineers researched how chairs could “promote health and comfort by emphasizing posture and movement”, for the first time; and in 1851, the first swivel chair was made.

This was revolutionary: it could be turned in all directions. The chairs didn't have a revolutionary impact however. There were two of them: the all swivel one, and the patent one. The patent one was called so because the people who designed it, mostly engineers and doctors, held patents on the design. These weren't accepted very well, discussed later.

Now, the swivel chair, Thomas E. Warren’s Centripetal Spring Armchair, to be precise, was amazing, featuring everything a rolling chair has today, except for adjustable lumbar support. It was made of cast iron and velvet. This chair was so good, it was deemed bad by Victorian Society. They felt strongly that posture was important, and that it meant a large amount of willpower, it demonstrated refinement, and thus morality. The chair, being so movable, encouraging bad posture, was considered immoral.

Now, this is an extremely weird topic. If you don't wish to continue, stop reading.

The late 19th century was influential in chair design. The designs were innovative, and engineers and doctors made chairs conforming to a person’s job, such as chairs for patients. These chairs made the work for tailors, surgery, hairdressing, and dentistry. Aside from these uses, no one used the patent chairs.

The chairs, however, weren't accepted into society. "By the 1890s, the barber’s chair raised and lowered, reclined and revolved on a hydraulic mechanism," noted Pynt, but they wouldn't be used in office seating or normal chairs for awhile: not until the middle of the 20th century.

Besides the fact that Victorian society didn't allow slouchy posture, the chairs simply didn't have the show, the appeal, the class that the purchases of chairs demanded. Except for specialized fields, the chairs weren't even used in office, due the non aesthetically pleasing appearances. Patent chairs were rejected practically everywhere.

Many of the chairs designed in that time were aesthetically pleasing, but the time just wasn't one for body conscious designs. Frank Lloyd Wright created a variety of chairs at the time, and like most of the people in the time, he designed them to fit in with the surrounding area.

Some designers did notice the body in respect to chairs. In 1904, while designing a chair for the Larkin Office Building, he made a chair that was three legged, meant for typists. Whenever a typist would lean forward, so would the chair.

1904 Larkin Office Building Chair

Due to the leaning, it gained the moniker “suicide chair” due to its precocious angle off the ground. This was defended by Lloyd, saying it forced good posture. The designer tried to install the same chair into the Johnson Wax building in 1939, but the general people didn't like the design, and he was forced to stabilize it.

The same man, however, created a swivel chair for the same building, and it is still considered to be one of the greatest office chairs of all time. This chair, however, neglected the body in it. It now sits in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Even then, people had different chairs depending on social standard and gender.

Back in the 1920s, people believed that relaxing showed laziness. Or rather, people believed that sitting comfortably caused laziness. Thus, chairs became sturdier than ever. Due to the declining productivity of those sitting in those chairs, especially in women, who had a dominating role in the workforce as time went on, a company called Tan-Sad made a chair with an adjustable backset curved to change with the person.

At the same time the Do/More chair was invented by William Ferris, marketed to prevent hemorrhoids, constipation and kidney troubles, and a lot more.

Around the 1950s, the people began to think about “ergonomics”, defined by Merriam-Webster as “an applied science concerned with designing and arranging things people use so that the people and things interact most efficiently and safely —called also biotechnology, human engineering, human factors”. The term was popularized around WWII, in order to allow cheaper and safer cockpit seats in airplanes.

In the 70s, people finally combined what the people want: a sleek design, with an ergonomic seat.

Ergon Chair, 1976

In ‘76 the Ergon Chair was made in a collaboration between Herman Miller and Stumpf. The chair was padded with foam, revolutionary for the time. This was ergonomic in many ways: it promoted good posture while being comfortable to sit in.

The Ergon chair is widely considered revolutionary. It was revolutionary not for beauty, but for ergonomics. It was designed in ‘74.

So, another chair was made, also in ‘76 when the Ergon chair was released. This was known as the Vertebra armchair. The brainchild of another collaboration, this time between Emilio Abmaz and Giancarlo Piretti, was a body conscious and beautiful.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art says that this chair was “the first automatically adjustable office chair, designed to respond and adapt to the movements of the user's body and provide comfort and support.” The chair won the ID Award for Excellence of Design in 1977. This functionality had been achieved decades earlier, but the Vertebra chair had a sleek design.

Aeron Chair, 1994

In 1994, the Aeron chair was made. It is one of the few chairs people outside of the chair industry know by name. Made by Stumpf and Donald Chadwick for Herman Miller, this chair was critically acclaimed due to its lumbar and padded back curve. The chair moved with the person sitting in it while leaning forward or back, and changed the market when it was sold in three sizes instead of positions. This meant it was sold in A size (small), B size (medium), and C size (large), contrary to executive and secretary models.

This revolutionized the industry, and other chair companies followed suit, while setting the standard that the chair should be modeled after the person.

The benefits of the chair certainly didn't curtail its price. Commonplace use of the chair would mean office managers investing hundreds per person for ergonomic chairs. Following several lawsuits for injuries, however, many executives were willing to pay the large sums.

This would be the adopted doctrine for most chairs afterwards: a sleek design, conforming to the person, and sold in different sizes.

That is what chairs were. But to fully understand chairs, you must look at their purposes. Why were these chairs so important? Why are they used?

Well, originally chairs were fixed, and not exactly mobile. This is the chair most people have. Later on in the industrial sector, with typewriters and filing systems being all the rage, a chair with enhanced mobility to get around the workspace was needed. The initial form of this solution was with the form of casters, described thoroughly above, but the issue of height did remain.

Originally, to change the height of a chair, there used to be a threaded column in the center, where the seat was mounted. To change the height, a worker would turn the seat to bring it up or down. This meant the only way to turn the chair was to change the height, and also meant that workers who pivoted regularly from their seat would periodically have to readjust their chair, as the height would decrease.

This was solved with the gas lift, that instantly adjusted seat height at the touch of a button, and allowed 360° rotation of the seat without having to change height. This process was also adopted into modern chairs, creating a perfect blend of comfort and usage.

Rolling chairs wouldn't have come far without the invention of the wheel. The wheel won't be discussed now, but be sure to stay on the lookout as it will come soon.

Resources used in the production of this history are:

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/design/2012/05 ergonomic_office_chairs_a_visual_history_photos_.html

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ergonomics

http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/life/design/2012/05/officechairs/chair08_ergon

http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/life/design/2012/05/officechairs/chair02_franklloydwright

http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/life/design/2012/05/officechairs/aaronchair.jpg.CROP.article568-large.jpg

http://www.swingchair.com/why-swingchair/history-office-chair/

Tsunamis: Formation, Safety and Patterns

Tsunamis seem like large waves of water destroying everything in their path. They seem like massive walls that will relentlessly claim their role in the list of dangerous natural disasters. Note the key word: seem.

Tsunamis are those points and worse. How do you get worse than a wall of water? A frozen wall of water? No, that would stay still. A boiling wall of water? Nah, too semi-gaseuous. The way that a wall of water about to crash onto you is dangerous is the way of the water.

Water seems to be one of the safest substances around. Sure, you can drown in it, but that's kind of evolution's fault, if we can't breathe underwater, there's probably a reason for it. Compare water with any other common substance. Dirt: can permanently blind you, can suffocate you, can get stuffed up your nostrils. Sand: can scratch your eyes, can also suffocate you, can also get in your eyes. Wow. Practically all solids can kill the same way. But sand leads to the creation of glass, and glass can also blind you, can sever limbs.

In contrast to all these natural causes of death, water seems harmless. But the true terror lies in the force of water. Water, when accumulated, gets an insanely high weight. A cubic yard of water has- drumroll please- a weight of 1,700 pounds. That's... a lot. I couldn't get a hold on how much psi that cubic yard of water would do to you, but lets leave it at enough to crush your skull if more than one hit you at forty miles an hour.

Basically, imagine getting hit by a speeding truck while you move towards it. In essense, tsunamis are dangerous, and knowledge of suggested precautions and how they form will greatly increase chances of survival in the event of a tsunami.

According to tsunami.noaa.gov, referred to as NOAA, “A tsunami is a series of ocean waves generated by sudden displacements in the sea floor, landslides, or volcanic activity. In the deep ocean, the tsunami wave may only be a few inches high. The tsunami wave may come gently ashore or may increase in height to become a fast moving wall of turbulent water several meters high.” Tsunamis cannot be prevented, but its impact can be lessened by background knowledge and preparation.

Though a fat lot of good knowledge will do you when you face the Wide Wall of Water.

These monstrous waves are relentless in their destruction. These waves have caused over 420,000 lives to be lost and billions of dollars of damage to the communities they ravage.

Major tsunamis are scarce. That fact may be a consolation to you and me, but to those who were hit by a tsunami aren't as glad.

Often, major tsunamis only occur once every few years, but cause tons of damage. For example, in 2004, a day after Christmas, a tsunami struck and killed about 130,000 people close to its origin earthquake and around 58,000 people on further shores.

Not only do these waves destroy the areas they hit, but they can be triggered by other large disturbances, meaning that a large earthquake in Taiwan could cause a tsunami in Europe. One prime example of this chain reaction is possibly the tsunami that struck Hawaii in 1946. An earthquake of the coast of the Aleutian Islands of Alaska created a series of waves that evolved into a tsunami. This wave grew to be as high as a 13 story building, in perspective, over 140 feet tall. The earthquake waves also split off and hit California and parts of South American. But the waves hit Hawaii hardest, and surges of water as high as two or three story buildings flooded its main island, killing 159 people and causing twenty-six million dollars in damage, back then. A leading theory for this tsunami is that the earthquake triggered a landslide, and the landslide and earthquake aftershocks both combined to set off the waves. Even after seventy years, the same tsunami’s cause continues to elude us.

Figure 1
Tsunamis cause devastation.  An aerial view of Lampuuk in Sumatra after the town’s 7000 
people were killed. Some 230,000 people in coastlines around the area were also affected.
 Picture credit John Stanmeyer, NG

These tsunamis still can't be predicted, as undersea motion is unpredictable, but after a wave is detected, its path can be modeled.

Major Tsunamis are generally created by earthquakes of magnitude 7 or higher on the Richer Scale, and with a “shallow focus” (less than 30km deep in the earth) created by oceanic and continental plate movement. After a plate fracture, the plates give, and a vertical movement is created. This allows a “quick and efficient transfer of energy” from the floor to ocean.

Don't you feel better knowing the earthquake causing the next big tidal wave had an easy and efficient transfer of energy? Now, if only jobs were quick and efficient.

One such powerful earthquake (9.3 magnitude) struck the coast of Indonesia in 2004, and the sea floor created a wave bank at least 30 meters (100 feet) in length. This claimed more than 240,000 people, and the shock waves reached Thailand, Sri Lanka, and India, and killed 58,000 more people.

These few examples have hopefully emphasized on the dangers and dangerous effects of tsunamis. Tsunamis are deadly, and as stated, there currently exists no accurate way to predict a tsunami, but a way to detect an oncoming tsunami does exist. Due to the sheer mass of continental plates, any major earthquake will cause a large effect, and this effect is so sudden, prediction is nigh impossible., but knowledge that one is forming is valuable.

There exists one such technology to detect oncoming tsunamis. The Rat Island Earthquake in Alaska, 17th of November 2003, set off an earthquake. This “generated a tsunami that was detected by three tsunameters located along the Aleutian Trench-the first tsunami detection by the newly developed real-time tsunameter system. These real-time data combined with the model database (2) were then used to produce the real-time model tsunami forecast. For the first time, tsunami model predictions were obtained during the tsunami propagation, before the waves had reached many coastlines. The initial offshore forecast was obtained immediately after preliminary earthquake parameters (location and magnitude Ms = 7.5) became available from the West Coast/Alaska TWC (about 15-20 minutes after the earthquake). The model estimates provided expected tsunami time series at tsunameter locations. When the closest tsunameter recorded the first tsunami wave, about 80 minutes after the tsunami, the model predictions were compared with the deep-ocean data and the updated forecast was adjusted immediately.”

This was detected using a relatively modern invention, deep ocean tsunami buoys. Each buoy is part of a system. The system involves a pressure sensor at the bottom of the sea, and the buoy itself. The pressure system detects seismic activity under the sea floor.

Each system can operate in two modes, standard and event. Standard mode is where the buoy satellites report every fifteen minutes to satellites, and are on a lower power mode to conserve battery. The mode measures sea levels. If the pressure sensor detects the movement of a wave spreading through the ocean, the buoy swaps into event mode. In event mode, the information is relayed every minute, sending sea levels to confirm a possible tsunami. If, in four hours, no further seismic activity is detected, the buoys turn back into standard mode.

These buoys are strategically positioned. The position has to be calculated carefully: they can't be too close to possible earthquake points, but they have to be close. They can't be too close as the proximity could ruin the data, because the earthquake and wave result could interfere with transmission. The buoys also have to be close enough to the earthquake epicenter to relay information fast enough to predict the oncoming tsunami. Buoys also have a depth condition, they generally must be placed in areas at least 3,000 meters deep, to prevent interference from surface waves.

These buoys do help in reality, as they are more reliable than relying solely on seismic data for tsunami prediction, and they reduce the amount of false alarms for tsunamis. Australia has started up a sea level stations around the sea, to increase the efficiency and accuracy of results.

These buoys are far from perfect though, they only have a life of around two to four years. They are, however, intricate: they can detect changes less than a millimeter in the ocean. Some of these buoys have a two way communication system, where they can communicate with a manual controller, to swap into event mode if necessary.

But its not like those buoys do anything. All that they do is tell you that there is probably a tsunami incoming. Doesn't it feel great to know you're safe?

Even with the detection, micro and major tsunamis happen all the time, and ultimately cannot be stopped, but the damages and casualties could be prevented with more awareness and responses. There currently exist a large amount of tsunami precautions: for both before and after the wave hits.

National Geographic suggests three things to stay safe from tsunamis: knowledge of local warning systems, a plan for evacuation, and knowing the warning sign of tsunamis. It also suggests to never stay at shore after a tsunami strike, and to not return until after authorities clear the area.

CWarn details safety a bit more. Firstly, they say that any strong earthquake more than 20 seconds can cause a tsunami. The organization goes on to suggest not to surf on tsunamis, as they are not surfable waves.

I repeat, I beg of you, I implore, don't be the one person who tries to ride a tsunami and get hit with the force of jackhammers to your skull. You may be an internet sensation because of stupidity, but you probably won't live to bask in the glory.

For safety tips, they suggest to know if the local area is prone to tsunamis, and if going to any area with risk of a tsunami, to know about any evacuation plans. They say to create and practice an evacuation plan, with specific measurements that are preferred: they say to try to aim for a hundred feet above sea level, preparation to get there by foot, and a place reachable in under fifteen minutes. Also important is to use a radio to know of local watches and warnings, and to talk it out with your insurance company to see whether they cover floods, and to discuss the risk with family to ensure everyone knows about tsunamis.

Protecting property is hard in the case of a tsunami. CWarn suggests not building a house near the coast, and to elevate homes, as most waves don't reach a height of more than ten feet. They advise an engineer to check the house for ways to make it more resistant, and to make a list of items for two purposes: to take in in case of a tsunami and to know what could possibly be missing. Above all, flood preparedness precautions should be followed.

That's a lot to keep in mind. Basically, run to high ground if there is a wave headed towards you, which most people have the common sense to do, then DON'T build a house near the shore, DO practice an evacuation pattern.

Figure 2

If a major earthquake strikes, it is advised to first drop, cover and hold on, especially if the earthquake lasts more than twenty seconds. Next, evacuate the area with your family, and avoid downed power lines.

Figure 3: Most tsunamis are centered around the Pacific Ring of Fire.
Picture credit V Gusiakov Russian Academy of Science

The major question that most people have is: what is the pattern in tsunamis? In recap, these are giant waves, caused by large disturbances, normally earthquakes of magnitude 7 or more, reaching heights up to 140 feet. Analyzing maps of major tsunamis (figure 2), some patterns show. a) major tsunamis occur around ten to twelve times a century b) most tsunamis occur within a ring of fire (figure 3). There are certain locations that are more prone to tsunamis than others. According to scientist analysis, 76% of major tsunamis occur in the Pacific Ocean and its seas, a whopping 10% in the Mediterranean Sea, 11% more in the Atlantic Ocean, and 3% in the Indian Ocean. This, however, doesn't accurately reflect damage: in less “geologically active” oceans such as the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, the damages cause significant damage.

Most tsunamis do occur in the Pacific, however, and that may be the one constant about tsunamis.

These monster waves are disastrous in their effects, in damage and casualties. They are truly unpredictable, and have proven in the last four score years (eighty years for all you non-english nerdy people) how deadly they are.

References for this document include

tsunami.noaa.gov: a great site to find more information about tsunami and impacts.

http://www.livescience.com/3732-mystery-deadly-1946-tsunami-deepens.html: a post detailing the tsunami of 1946 and its possible causes.

http://tsunami.noaa.gov/tsunami_story.html One of the pages on tsunamis, detailing the detection and formation

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/natural-disasters/tsunami-safety-tips/ Tsunami safety described.

http://cwarn.org/tsunami/be-prepared A more in depth description of safety.

http://www.bom.gov.au/tsunami/about/detection_buoys.shtml Information on buoys, Australian ocean web, so is about Australia, but most buoys are standard, as the DART (Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis) II (current version) was originally developed in the US by the Pacific Marine Enviromental Laboratory (PMEL) of NOAA. NOAA is a reference as well

http://www.sms-tsunami-warning.com/pages/tsunami-history#.WLduMbw8KhA A great webpage that analyzes the patterns and locations

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/weekinreview/13water.html Water sweet water.

Picture credits: figure 1: John Stanmeyer, NG Staff, figure 2: V Gusiakov Russian Academy of Science, figure 3: www.sms-tsunami-warning.com