Bad, bad dr.Freud...

...or - Information Flux Damage , continued.

Whenever i read in the news about some transport, building , or industrial catastrophe, although healthy reason dictates that majority of them may have perfectly natural , stochastic causes, I almost instinctively start to search for some IFD - traces.

This reminds me of Vienna , um Jahrhundertwende XIX/XX, where every fashionable Wiener (or Wienerin) searched - and usualy found - some psychoanalitical problems in own person; at least an Oedipus-complex . All thanks to strong personality of Dr.Freud. We may say, that due to his persuasive powers, dr.Freud produced something like mass-Dr.Freud-syndrome...

However, rare and very cautious exchange of opinions with other seasoned engineers , as well as equally rare and cautious remarks in the serious , specialistic papers , tell me that the problem exists and intensifies; with effects, unfortunately, well beyond psycho-analysis.

I believe to have sketched the physical scheme of the IFD-phenomenon, in one of the former blogs on this web-page. Certainly , blogging does not belong to scientific method (courtesy of Francis Bacon ; the savant , not the painter). I leave therefore the solving of quite complex probabilistic functions to younger minds - "il est aise a voir..."

Aviation and nuclear industry were the first fields where , already forty years ago, serious reliability calculations with full mathematical apparatus were applied , to assess integrity of mechanical systems with age. I had the pleasure to immerse in both.

Only now , refineries, construction and other less-exposed industries begin to follow similiar paths. Perhaps, not too late.

I watch sometimes with amusement how IT-people emulate , or actually exceed the reliability endeavours of mechanical engineers. Multiplying redundancies and voting systems in the computer world is by far easier. But the funny thing is that damaging five computers at once takes more or less the same amount of energy as the single one. Whereas breaking two strong steel shafts instead of one still costs substantially more, in enthropy terms...