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Interdisciplinary Science Reviews: papers from the December 2002 issue

December 17, 2002

FORENSIC ENGINEERING: A REAPPRAISAL OF THE TAY BRIDGE DISASTER
Peter R. Lewis and Ken Reynolds (Open University, UK)

The Tay Bridge disaster of 1879 shocked the world and led to important changes in bridge design, construction, and inspection. The Court of Inquiry produced its final report in six months, and condemned the structure for its design and materials defects. However, the court did not specify exactly how the final collapse of the 'high girders' section occurred on the night of the accident. By reexamining the wealth of evidence surviving from the time, in particular the photographic archive and the court proceedings, we have looked again at the causes of the disaster. Our reappraisal confirms the conclusions of the original inquiry, but it also extends them by suggesting that lateral oscillations were induced in the high girders section of the bridge by trains passing over a slight misalignment in the track. The amplitude of these oscillations grew with time, because joints holding the bridge together were defective, and this in turn resulted in fatigue cracks being induced in the cast iron lugs, which reached criticality on the night of the disaster. Numerous east-west lugs fractured when a local train passed over the bridge in a westerly gale on the evening of 28 December 1879. The express train which followed was much heavier, and the towers in the high girders collapsed progressively as the train was part way over the section. Although wind loads contributed to the disaster, the bridge was already severely defective owing to failure of its most important stabilising elements.

Contact: Dr Peter R. Lewis, Department of Materials Engineering, Faculty of Technology, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK (email p.r.lewis@open.ac.uk)

REPRESENTATIONS OF ELECTRICITY: THE DEVELOPMENT OF A VISUAL LANGUAGE FOR ELECTRICAL PHENOMENA
Nina Zimmer (University of Chicago, IL, USA) and Bodil Holst (TU Graz, Austria)

This paper has two primary objectives. First, it addresses the development of an iconography for electrical phenomena in the eighteenth century, showing how scientific progress influenced artistic images, and how, eventually, Franklin's revolutionary discovery that lightning is an electric discharge made it possible to use a zigzag line (already used at the time as the iconographic symbol for lightning) as a sign for electricity. Second, it investigates the creation and evolution of conventions for scientific illustrations. The following original argument is also introduced: that the stylistic ideals of Classicism influenced scientific illustration in the period around 1800.

Contact: Dr Bodil Holst, Max-Planck-Institut fur Strömungsforschung, Bunsenstrasse 10, 37073 Göttingen, Germany (email bholst@gwdg.de)

THE SCIENCE AND SCIENTIFIC LEGACY OF OPERATION CHASTISE
Charles S. Cockell (British Antarctic Survey, UK)

Operation Chastise, more often known as the 'Dambusters raids', was one of the most audacious aerial military operations of the Second World War, in that it made use of operationally untested technical innovations under extreme logistical constraints. Of particular interest is the scientific environment in which the mission was implemented. Here I review the principal scientific innovations that were necessary for the realisation of the mission. These went beyond the rotating depth charge itself. Simple but nevertheless ingenious methods for altitude and range finding were devised for low altitude flying, and the new system of two stage blue day-night flying was implemented for simulated night flying. Even drugs to combat airsickness during low altitude flight in turbulence were tested. The diverse technical expertise that was necessary for the original idea to be transformed into a logistical reality in less than three months provides a particularly lucid instance of effective scientific management in a framework of rapid technological change. I also describe an expedition inspired by these developments, which forty years on used a dedicated low altitude night flying microlight aircraft (the Barnes Wallis Moth Machine) to catch insects over a rainforest canopy, illustrating the legacies that such missions can leave.

Contact: Charles S. Cockell, British Antarctic Survey, High Cross, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0ET, UK (email csco@bas.ac.uk)

INTERDISCIPLINARITY IN THE NEUROSCIENCES
Renato M. E. Sabbatini and Silvia Helena Cardoso (State University of Campinas, Brazil)

The study of the human brain and of the biological nature of the mind and consciousness remains one of the greatest of all scientific challenges. Neuroscience can also lay claim to being one of the most interdisciplinary fields of scientific enquiry, and this has been true since well before the concept of interdisciplinarity was itself invented. Neuroscience draws on insights and developments in disciplines as diverse as molecular biology, electronics, biomedical engineering, statistics, psychology, biophysics, pharmacology, and linguistics. This paper examines the historical, transdisciplinary roots of modern neuroscience and reviews its contemporary interdisciplinary character, before examining two 'case studies', the emergence of functional neuroimaging as a powerful new neuroscientific tool and the ongoing dialogue between computer science and the neurosciences.

Contact: Renato M. E. Sabbatini, Center for Biomedical Informatics, PO Box 6005, State University of Campinas, SP 13081-970, Brazil (email sabbatin@nib.unicamp.br)

Other contributions include:

CENTENARY GLEANINGS FROM THE P. A. M. DIRAC ARCHIVE
Charles W. Conaway (Florida State University, FL, USA)

CREATING THE WORLD: THE ORIGINS OF ALL THINGS IN ANCIENT GREEK MYTH AND MEDICINE
Helen King (University of Reading, UK)

THE COMPUTATION BEHIND CONSONANCE AND DISSONANCE
Jan Wild (Charles University, Czech Republic)

Ingenta plc (Oxford branch)