Earthquakes and collapses

The recent tragic events in L'Aquila have once again highlighted the fact that collapsing buildings are usually the main culprit when people are killed during earthquakes. Unfortunately this earthquake occurred at night, when almost everyone was indoors, and in an area where masonry construction was the norm.

Unlike countries such as Japan or the western United States, which also have cities in fault zones, Italy has few laws requiring buildings to be constructed to be earthquake resistant.It is no exaggeration to say that earthquake engineering would have saved lives in L'Aquila. Some say that it is too expensive to built a building that can withstand an earthquake, and this is true to an extent. Constructing a building to be able to survive a substantial earthquake without requiring major repair work is possible, but hugely expensive. It can only be carried out on major building projects.

Of course, earthquakes often strike in second and third world countries. We have all seen the huge death tolls that resulted from earthqakes in places such as Iran, China and Mexico. In these cases poorer people often live in homes that consist of masonry walls and concrete floors and roofs. Masonry performs appallingly in an earthquake, with even well-built brick buildings weakening to the point of collapse within a matter of seconds. A typical earthquake of 30 seconds or more is more than sufficient to bring a ten ton slab of concrete crashing down into the rooms below.

Clearly earthquake-proofing homes in the third world is not economically viable nor is it practical in logistical terms. However, we must bear in mind that it is not essential for the building itself to actually survive the earthquake. It is sufficient for it to remain intact enough not to kill its occupants. Although it would be a bad situation, most people would still rather survive and be left homeless than to be killed in their beds.

The technology to achieve this has been tried and tested in the third world, and is simple and affordable. The building is built from a series of reinforced concrete pillars. These can be made on site, by putting metal rods vertically and pouring concrete into moulds round them. The concrete roof is then set on top. Finally, the walls are build with normal masonry.

In an earthquake, the masonry walls of this building will crack and be badly damaged, but this is okay as they are not load-bearing. The concrete pillars may crack and bend, but will likely remain standing and hold the roof up. The occupants will not be crushed by the roof and will be able to get out alive.

There is a social justice challenge for us all here. Many people in earthquake zones may not be able to afford to build earthquake-proof homes, but it should be possible with relatively little extra expense to provide homes that will at least allow people to survive an earthquake.

And, of course, similar technology should be made compulsory for all new buildings constructed in Italy as well. I hope this lesson is learned.

On science

I spent four years of my life studying for my degree and then, when most of my friends went out and got a decent job and earned a living, I decided to go back for three more years of postgrad study. Seven years in university gives you a lot of time to think. Especially during the epically long four month summer holiday that students get. What was I doing all this time? Well, 50% of the time* was spent drinking tea in the chaplaincy. The other 50% of time I used studying computer science. During this time I was trained to be a scientist and to use the scientific method.

It was only towards the end of this time that I really started to understand what a wonderful thing the scientific method actually is. It's a beautifully simple concept, yet has allowed the human race to go from primitive cave-dwelling club-wielders to a species equally at home at the ocean floor and in interplanetary space.

Science is the study of creation. For reasons known only to himself, God made the universe obey rules. The rules are amazingly complex, but they are there nonetheless. But he didn't tell us what they are - we have to figure this out for ourselves. This is what science does - it tries to understand the rules that govern the universe, and then use what we learn to extrapolate new ideas and develop technology. Without science, you would not be reading this blog. In fact, you would not be reading. In fact, most likely you would not even be.

Like I said, the scientific method is wonderfully simple. It consists of four steps:

1. Observe a phenomenon or event.
2. Theorise. In other words, come up with a possible explanation.
3. Make a prediction. Find some way to test your theory.
4. Carry out the test, and accept or reject the theory.

This method can be used to test everything from the way a pendulum swings, to the temperatures on a mountain and the way in which a ball bounces. Almost all technology that we have developed as a human race was derived from knowledge acquired through the scientific method.

However, there are two things about the scientific method that deserve caution.

1. It can only be used to examine what can be observed and test. Things that cannot be observed and independently verified cannot be studied by the scientific method. One example is the concept of beauty, since that is highly subjective and cannot be independently verified by others. Another example is God, who appears to remain deliberately beyond verifiable testing. Some scientists make the mistake of thinking that if it can't be explored by the scientific method, then it does not exist. But this is irrational.
2. The scientific method is predisposed to disproving things. It is very easy to disprove a theory, but extremely hard to prove a theory. For example, if I have a bag of coins and I take out 100 coins and every one of them turns out to be a ten pence piece, I could theorise that every coin in the bag is a ten pence piece. This is easy to disprove - even a single example of another coin would be enough. But to prove it, I would have to exhaustively remove every single coin. Science is thus biased toward disproof.

The scientific method is a wonderful thing. I devoted 7 years of my life to it. It has transformed the human race and our understanding of the created world. But it is not the answer to everything. We should not rely on science alone. There are many things, God included, to which we cannot apply the scientific method. This does not mean that they are not there. It just highlights one of the shortcomings of science.

Science can explain a lot - an awful lot - but logically it can't explain everything.

*perhaps more