Mayank Chhaya Daily

Morbi bridge collapse was a disaster waiting to happen because of poor Factor of Safety

Eminent safety and quality control expert Dr. Bharat Thakkar (Photo: Mayank Chhaya)

I wrote this for Indica News

By Mayank Chhaya

With its Factor of Safety (FOS) being way lower than it should have been the Morbi bridge was in a sense a disaster waiting to happen, Dr. Bharat Thakkar, an eminent expert on safety of systems and quality control with several papers to his name, has said.

“The FOS of the Morbi bridge was set at 5 or 6 which for the 600 people it carried at the time of the collapse was too low for any kind of bridges,” Dr. Thakkar, a retired professor of mechanical engineering who taught for decades at major U.S. universities, told Indica News.

“In the US and elsewhere globally, the Factor of Safety should be between 30 to 50 with a lifespan of at least 50 years,” he said.

FOS is essentially a load-carrying capacity of a structure beyond what the structure supports. It is about how much stronger a structure should than what is required.

In Dr. Thakkar’s conclusion poor design is the cause of failure. In particular, Dr. Thakkar said it is reflected in the mechanical fatigue properties of the bridge as maybe found in its poor materials.

FOS is the starting point for engineers while designing any structure in order to account for overload and the structure’s capacity to stay intact in the face of it.

From the initial indications it is obvious that the Morbi bridge’s FOS was not something that was seriously accounted for. “I am not qualified to go into what leads to such negligence, whether corrupt practices were involved or there was any political motivation to throw open the bridge. My concern as an engineer is only to point out that the FOS of 5 or 6 is unacceptable for any bridge,” Dr. Thakkar said.

At the heart of the rationale behind FOS is that any structure be built stronger than what is deemed necessary in order that it withstands any emergency of the kind the Morbi bridge experienced in terms of overload.

Building bridges is a complex exercise which takes into account factors such as ductile materials versus brittle materials. While the former deforms considerably under pressure before eventually breaking, the latter breaks at the point it meets the maximum force.

It is not Dr. Thakkar’s case that these factors were not considered or understood but simply that they need to be kept at the center of any such construction.

“No one will ever build for the FOS with 5 or 6. The bridge was built for 150 people maximum for daily use. It collapsed when 500 to 600 people were on it,” Dr. Thakkar said.

“The designers must consider dynamic effects. This Morbi bridge experienced dynamic effect due to people walking and playing with it because it was a hanging bridge. It is not people’s fault playing with the structure. Anyone would like to test it out of curiosity because it was newly opened to the public. However, even a scratch in wires can cause stress concentration up to 100 times,” he said.

It was a measure of Dr. Thakkar’s expertise that he was the first expert to say that the Vikram lunar lander of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) likely crashed at about 184 miles per hour, a speed at which nothing of value could have survived.

“Vikram was designed for soft landing. Is it true that there was no contingency in design for a free fall any time during moon landing or any other time during Chandrayaan-2 mission?  Expecting Vikram to function after a free fall is a false hope similar to a ‘dead person’ coming alive. Pulling the plug on ‘brain dead’ is the right attitude. Expecting for divine intervention is very much cultural phenomenon in India,” he said.

Although Dr. Thakkar’s scientifically sound explanation was met with a mix of skepticism and even some anger in certain quarters, eventually it turned out to be the case.

He said, the Morbi bridge collapse “is a much worse failure than Vikram simply because so many lives have been lost which could have been saved had attention to detail such as the FOS as well as maintenance was paid.”

“Structures are as much about building them as about maintaining them. It seems to me there is failure here on both those counts,” he said.

Humans as quantum particles forever in superposition until measured

This Saturday morning, I am in the mood to reup one of my favorite posts from six years ago dated November 25, 2016. It is about my long hypothesized idea of us humans as quantum particles. 

It is frequently that I feel debilitated by the trivial and oppressive banalities of human existence. It felt particularly intense in my teenage and it is returning with some force all over again. At times like this one returns to one’s favorite playground—physics and the universe.

I was watching a breathtaking NASA fly-through movie of the Orion Nebula and was reminded of one of my lifelong passions—humans as quantum particles. The video of the nebula, located 1350 light years from us and 24 light years across, is a necessary viewing for all those who get routinely lulled by the trivialities of life.

Apart from everything else, as a recently emerging painter, I am also captivated by how arrestingly beautiful the nebula is. As NASA explains, “By combining the visible and infrared capabilities of the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, astronomers and visualization specialists from NASA’s Universe of Learning program have created a spectacular, three-dimensional, fly-through movie of the magnificent Orion Nebula, a nearby stellar nursery. Using actual scientific data along with Hollywood techniques, a team at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, and the Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California, has produced the best and most detailed multi-wavelength visualization yet of the Orion Nebula. The two-minute movie allows viewers to glide through the picturesque star-forming region and experience the universe in an exciting new way.”

I strongly recommend you spare three minutes to watch the video linked to the image above.

Once you do that, it might be useful to read what I wrote on November 25, 2016 that I republish below. The scale of of our Milky Way, let alone the neighboring Orion and the rest of the universe, should give a context to what I am saying.

November 25, 2016

For as long as I remember I have considered humans as quantum particles in relation to the universe. Just consider this one fact. If the sun was hollow, it could fit 1.3 million earths inside. Now imagine an average human’s size in relation to earth within those 1.3 million earths inside the sun which is but a mediocre star as stars in our Milky Way galaxy go. You begin to get some measure of how minuscule an average human is. We are quantum particles in relation to our own galaxy, let alone our galactic neighborhood and eventually the entire universe.

Having established that scale, now on to a theory I have long nurtured. If humans are quantum particles, they ought to display quantum characteristics, a fundamental one of which is quantum superposition. We all live in the human version of quantum superposition. I define human superposition as living in all possible emotional or unemotional states at all times until such time as an external stimulation triggers a response. Then we assume a specific state the way quantum particles do.

When we are measured (interacted with) in a manner of speaking, we reveal a specifically identifiable state which collapses into superposition as soon as that act of measurement or interaction stops. Until such time as I am interacting with a particular individual I can never tell what state that person is in. That means the person is in all possible states, including dead, without my interacting (measuring) them. It is only when specific information related to that specific person is accessed by an act of measurement or interaction, do we get to access one particular state. The idea that from one’s extremely limited knowledge, the rest of the universe is a mere speculation can be an unsettling one.

In a strange way I am reminded of my theory when someone famous or accomplished passes away; someone whose existence I was not aware of to begin with. It is only because I came to measure or interact or to be revealed to of that person’s death, do I know that that person existed. I say famous or accomplished because those deaths are publicly reported. Tens of millions of people die every year (One number is about 55 million people die every year) whose lives or deaths we are not aware of and hence their existence remains speculative for us for all practical purposes.

Coming back to my idea of human superposition, once you apply that theory to humans you can explain a lot of what goes on in the world. Some human particles jiggle much more than the others and therefore reveal their existence more assertively. Most lead an existence of low energy and therefore tend to fade away without making much impact beyond their immediate neighborhood.

There is some comfort—at least for me—in thinking of ourselves as quantum particles in relation to the universe. In some sense, the state of being human quantum particles liberates oneself from being tethered to value judgment. If I reveal something of my existence or a particular state, it is only because someone, somewhere measured it.

I must clarify I use measure not in a literal sense of measuring something the way physicists measure the quantum world but as an act of human interaction.

As useful ideas go, what I have just written about is rather useless in so much as it affects one’s daily life. On the other hand though, the moment you look at fellow human beings as fellow quantum particles forever in all possible states they can be until such time they are measured, life becomes easier.

In the realm of frenzied creativity

Frenzied creativity has long been my mind's default setting. This morning it has been on display in three distinct creative realms--painting, photography and poetry. The alliteration is unintentional. 

It began with this quick painting early morning. It needs no explanation. Paintings need no explanation just as, to quote the great Oscar Wilde, beauty is a form of genius that needs no explanation. The best way to look at a painting is to just look at it and move on. It needs no critical appraisal. 

Soon after the painting, I went for my morning walk and observed these four visuals. 

And as I finished my walk with these two verses were born:

आज सुबह हल्दी सी थी
यार से मिलने की जल्दी सी थी

कदम मेरे रुके ठीक तब
वोह मेरी जानिब चलदी सी थी

***

तोड़ना है तो पूरा तोड़ दे
वरना सारे टुकड़ों को जोड दे

रास्ता है कहीं तो जायेगा
कहीं पे भी मोड़ दे

--मयंक छाया

Om Puri: Unselfconscious without being self-absorbed

I met Om Puri, whose 72^nd birth anniversary falls today, only twice, sixteen years apart. The first time was at the residence of Naseeruddin Shah soon after the release of the cult black comedy ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron’ sometime in 1983. As part of a Free Press Journal Sunday feature, we had gathered the entire cast of the movie for a conversation. Om Puri was one of them.

I remember him as someone remarkably unselfconscious without being self-absorbed. He had already earned the reputation of being a world-class actor. Remember 'Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron' came after his astounding performances in Satyajit Ray’s short film ‘Sadgati’ (1981) and Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi (1982). The same year that 'Jaane Bhi Do Yaron' was released also saw Puri bring the house down in Govind Nihalani’s ‘Ardh Satya’. Had the movie been made in the U.S. he would have won an Oscar for that.

During the 1983 conversation one did not hear much from him because there were so many of them together. However, a particular observation of his that has stayed with me all these years is what he had said in Hindi, “Main ek actor dukaandar hoon. Tarah tarah ke kirdar rakhta hoon. (I am an actor- shopkeeper. I stock many different kinds of characters.)”

Quite strikingly, a reference to dukaan or shop to describe his profession came once again when I interviewed at a hotel in Santa Clara in California in 1999. By that time, Puri had already become celebrated in international cinema.

This is how one of our exchanges went.

Me : Are you consciously shifting towards a greater number of international films?

Om Puri: बम्बई में तो दुकान चल ही रही है.

And then to make sure that I understood it, he said, "The shop is also open in Bombay."

Unquestionably, Om Puri was one of the world’s greatest actors who could hold his own against any Hollywood or British greats. What set him apart was, and I reiterate, that he was unselfconscious without being self-absorbed.

Check out the clip above from his 1994 film ‘Wolf’  directed by Mike Nichols when he had an extraordinary scene with Jack Nicholson. Puri played Dr. Vijay Alezais.

I had asked him about the fact that in that barely three-minute-long scene he went through so many subtle emotional changes, facially and gesturally. How did he manage that?

“I just lived that character in those moments. Everything else, including my facial expressions and gestures, just automatically materialized,” he said.

Here is to Om Puri.

Best to let oneself go on paper

By MC

It is interesting how in the midst of any creative pursuit, be it writing, painting, composing or anything else, one sometimes gets an intimation from the ether that this is going to work. By that I mean, work not just for me but even those who might engage it with it. This morning that it is this rapid sketch of horses.

As is often the case with me, I did not start out wanting to sketch horses. In fact, I know precisely which line was the first one that I drew on an impulse. Initially, it shaped up to be a couple of women caught in the middle of their swaying. Then suddenly my hand movements changed and started drawing horses. The curves are similar.

It is my habit/technique to just let myself go on paper or canvas to eventually get at something identifiable. Not being a trained artist by any measure keeps me liberated from the rules of the craft of painting and sketching. There is no schooling to interfere with my creative impulses.

While doing this particular work, I was reminded of the time when I took an entrance test for an admission at the National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad in either 1974 or 1975. One of the questions was about drawing a sign denoting danger without lifting one’s pencil off the paper once you started drawing. What to draw was a no-brainer to me—skull and bones. As I finished it in a few seconds the test supervisor tapped on my shoulder and said in Gujarati, “Admission thai jashe. (You will get admission.) This is good.”

Unfortunately, I was not among the 20 they selected. I was number 21. Life might have turned out differently had I been accepted at the NID. Soon afterwards, I watched ‘The Odessa File’ featuring John Voight playing Peter Miller, an investigative journalist. Although the movie was released in the U.S. in 1974, by the time it came to Ahmedabad it was probably 1976 or 1977. There is a line in the movie that goes something like “I am Peter Miller. I am a journalist.” Ever since I heard it, I wanted to say that myself. I started saying it in 1981 on joining the Free Press Journal.

So, what do my horses this morning have anything to do with why I became a journalist? Nothing really except perhaps that the NID did not admit me. I am glad it did not.

With time the universe becomes familiar but not comprehensible

Painting--MC

The Nobel Prize for Physics given to Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger for their pioneering work in quantum mechanics has prompted me to revisit some of my many ruminations on the subject.

The idea that two particles, irrespective of how far apart they are from each other, can get entangled or in a sense affect each other’s behavior instantly remains a truly bizarre one despite the passage of so many decades after its inception. That very idea has won the three physicists the Nobel Prize in Physics and it is only appropriate to make a few observations.

In 2018, I wrote a line in a slightly different context which I then thought and still do is a brilliant construct. “With time the universe becomes familiar but not comprehensible”, I wrote. I put quantum entanglement under that category. It feels familiar but not comprehensible.

Albert Einstein famously described quantum entanglement as “spooky action at a distance” primarily because he thought in order for an action on one system or particle to affect another at a distance a wave or a signal or information had to travel between them. And that travel by a wave or a signal or information ought to obey the speed limit of light. According to Einstein, that is equally true of gravity.  The speed of limit of light requirement meant that changing the behavior of one system or particle could not possibly impact that of another simply because some time will pass between the two given that a wave or a signal took time to travel. If the claim about instantaneous effect was real, then it would be spooky to think that it could happen.

Quantum entanglement works only at quantum levels. It could not, for instance, possibly work among humans. If I slap myself right now, it is impossible that someone entangled with me would feel the hurt. However, there are those who have said telepathy, to the extent anyone believes in it, is a manifestation of quantum entanglement. I have also written about how consciousness is quantum.

On the question of quantum entanglement Einstein had this to say, “There is one supposition we should, in my opinion, absolutely hold fast: the real factual situation of the system, S2 is independent of what is done to the system S1, which is spatially separated from the former.” By system Einstein meant particles.

It was in his interaction with the physicist Max Born, that Einstein came up with the enduring phrase when he said, “Physics should represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky action at a distance.”

Experiments by the three Nobel laureates, and in some sense by others earlier, have shown that quantum entanglement is real and not just theoretical. The Nobel citation said, “Using groundbreaking experiments, Alain Aspect, John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger have demonstrated the potential to investigate and control particles that are in entangled states. What happens to one particle in an entangled pair determines what happens to the other, even if they are really too far apart to affect each other. The laureates’ development of experimental tools has laid the foundation for a new era of quantum technology.”

The Nobel committee also said, “Their results have cleared the way for new technology based upon quantum information. The ineffable effects of quantum mechanics are starting to find applications. There is now a large field of research that includes quantum computers, quantum networks and secure quantum encrypted communication.”

It would have been fascinating to see how Einstein might have reacted to this.

Irrespective of whether it works in real life, I am still keeping quantum entanglement under my original idea that with time the universe becomes familiar but not comprehensible.

Developed economies “shutting the door” on limiting global temperature, says UN chief

I wrote the following for Indica News. 

United Nations Secretary General António Guterres

By Mayank Chhaya

With the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties 27 or COP27 barely a month away, Secretary General António Guterres has stepped up his warnings about the follies of ignoring “a life-or-death struggle” that the world is in the grip of.

“A third of Pakistan flooded. Europe’s hottest summer in 500 years. The Philippines hammered. The whole of Cuba in black-out. And here, in the United States, Hurricane Ian has delivered a brutal reminder that no country and no economy is immune from the climate crisis,” Guterres told journalists painting an increasingly dire picture of the climate catastrophe.

His observations come in the run-up to the COP27, which begins on November 6 and ends November 18 at Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt.

Guterres has been particularly critical of the G20 industrialized nations in stalling any major action. He said that the collective commitments of G20 leading industrialized nations governments are coming “far too little, and far too late”.

“The actions of the wealthiest developed and emerging economies simply don’t add up,” Guterres said, pointing out that current pledges and policies are “shutting the door” on limiting global temperature to 2°C, let alone meet the 1.5°C goal.

His comments acquire particular significance since they come just before the pre COP27 planning meetings being organized in Kinshasa, in the Congo. Guterres said, “we are in a life-or-death struggle for our own safety today and our survival tomorrow,” even while counseling that there is no time for pointing fingers or “twiddling thumbs” but instead requires “a quantum level compromise between developed and emerging economies”.

Perhaps part of that compromise is the $100 billion in pledges that Guterres expects from the developed world to fulfil in order to support climate action in developing countries.

He called the COP27 is “the number one litmus test” of how seriously governments take the growing climate toll on the most vulnerable countries.

“This week’s pre-COP can determine how this crucial issue will be handled in Sharm el-Shaikh,” he said as he called for clarity from developed countries on the delivery of their $100 billion pledge.

In Kinshasa, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed warned environment ministers and others that the window of opportunity to avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis is closing.

“Mohammed recalled that at last year’s COP26 conference in Glasgow, developed nations had promised to double adaptation support to $40 billion dollars a year by 2025,” according to an official UN statement. 

“The UN deputy chief called for a clear roadmap on how the funding will be delivered, starting this year.

She added that $40 billion is “only a fraction of the $300 billion that will be needed annually by developing countries for adaptation by 2030,” the statement said.

In the run up to the COP27, the most disturbing realization is that the goal keeping Earth’s average temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above its preindustrial level is all but dead. As pointed out by Guterres repeatedly, the wealthiest economies are “shutting the door” on limiting the temperature to 2°C, let alone meet the 1.5°C goal.

That makes the work of the COP27 so much harder even as the world daily experiences extreme consequences of climate change caused by a warming planet.

As pointed out by Guterres, global emissions have continued to rise since 2018 when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations–led panel of scientists and scholars, said the goal of 1.5°C had become impossible. While it is often said the goal is “technically” possible to achieve but it invariably runs into global development compulsions and challenges, particularly in the developing world.

Since the 2018 IPCC report all the dire scenarios of extreme droughts, famines, hurricanes and other related catastrophes have become a reality around the world. Guterres has used his powerful platform to unrelentingly talk about the climate crisis as the defining challenge for humanity.

The best that is hoped for by many experts is that even as the world will overshoot the goal through the century there are expectations that by 2050 the world will control the temperature by removing vast amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.