Fortsätt till huvudinnehåll

The Wreck of the Vasa, Calculus and Naval Architecture


King Gustav Adolph's flagship, the Vasa, sank in 1628 when a squall blew it over in Stockholm harbour on its maiden voyage. It is now on display in a specially built museum. This incident was similar to that which sank the Mary Rose in Portsmouth Harbour in 1533.

The guide explained that the ship was too narrow for the amount of sail which it carried and that there was insufficient knowledge of ship design at the time to prevent this kind of thing, other than rule-of-thumb. There was a commission of inquiry but nobody could be blamed.

Which has set me thinking. What had happened to the Vasa was widely known. It is also likely that shipbuilders understood that a narrow ship was a faster ship. But optimum design would require the application of calculus, which was not invented until around 1675 by Newton and Leibnitz, apparently simultaneously and independently. And, as far as I know, it was to be another century before the mathematical principles were applied to practical shipbuilding.

As I understand it, Newton was concerned about the motions of the planets. Of Leibnitz I know little. But Newton was a member of the Royal Society, which was founded just after the Restoration in 1660. To what extent, I wonder, was the Vasa disaster the driving force behind the interest in science by monarchs such as Charles II?

Can anyone shed some light on this?
Etiketter:

Kommentarer

Skicka en kommentar

Populära inlägg i den här bloggen

The Zombie Train that refuses to die

The Guardian has published a couple more articles against HS2, one by specialist rail commentator Christian Wolmar, and another today by journalist Simon Jenkins. The main arguments in favour will doubtless be wheeled out by the commentators: the need for capacity and the disruption caused by upgrading existing routes. HST itself will severely disrupt services to Euston during the construction period. Capacity can be increased at a fraction of the cost by a variety of measures, provided that it is accepted that the additional traffic will run at existing speeds. It is not generally known that the Midland main line is, or was, four track all the way from London to Trent Junction, between Nottingham and Derby. This is because the additional tracks are separate, having been added for coal trains which trundled down to Brent sidings, on the edge of London, from a collection point at Toton in Nottinghamshire, where the Midland Railway build a huge marshalling yard. Beyond Derby, the main l...
Skicka en kommentar
Läs mer

Importing people to sustain demand

I got involved in a discussion with a Youtuber called “Philosophy all along”. This was in connection with criticism of Trump’s policy of deporting illegal migrants, which he argued would be bad for the economy as it would reduce demand. This implies that there is a need to import people to sustain demand. There is no obvious reason why a population should not be able to consume everything that the same population produces. If it can not, then something else is going on. It is a basic principle that wages are the least that workers will accept to do a job. Wages are a share of the value added by workers through their wages. The remainder is distributed as economic rent, after government has taken its cut in taxes. Monopoly profit is a temporary surplus that after a delay gets absorbed into economic rent. Land values in Silicon Valley are an example of this; it's like a gold rush. The miners get little out of it. Rent and tax syphon purchasing power away from those who produce the g...
Skicka en kommentar
Läs mer

Beyond electrification

In an earlier post I suggested a core list of lines which ought to be in an electrification programme spread over twenty years of so. This leaves a residue of routes which it is unlikely will ever be electrified. This include for example All lines beyond Glasgow, Stirling and Aberdeen All lines west of Exeter and Swansea All lines west of Chester Shrewsbury - Chester Everything not listed in my previous blog - electrification plans only scratch surface   Some of these routes carry main line services to London and other cities on parts of the network that are already electrified or included in electrification plans. Others are self contained and others carry light traffic - less than a dozen trains a day. The current plan is that main line services will be operated with the hybrid trains on order from Hitachi, but this is a costly, wasteful and ineffective solution. The performance of the trains will be inferior to the present Inter-City 125 trains on non-electrified lines and the ...
Skicka en kommentar
Läs mer