"Environmentalists" also made a big fuzz about the Øresund connection, claiming that the artificial island midway would disrupt the entire Baltic Sea ecosystem by drastically reducing the flow of water.
Didn't happen. The (fairly small) compensatory digging had the effect the engineers had calculated and the water flow actually increased slightly and the Baltic Sea ecosystem is fine -- or at least not harmed by this particular project.
I think we should trust the people who can (and do) make calculations over those who can't (and don't).
The problem is, it was known that the bridge was structurally unsound thanks to its age, but the elements that corroded and actually caused the damage could not be inspected at all. The report [1] is quite fascinating, the meat is on page 53/54:
> Auf Grundlage der gewonnenen Erkenntnisse und der positiven Berechnungsergebnisse wurde in der Gesamtbetrachtung weder ein akuter Handlungsbedarf festgestellt noch eine Verstärkung als erforderlich erachtet
> (Based on observation results and positive simulations no need to act was derived, nor was an increase in observation deemed to be necessary)
The root cause is deemed to be errors made all the way back during construction, most probably too long exposure of the steel cables to the environment (see page 108).
Only thanks to this desaster the actual failure mode and how to spot it got known in the first place. The report suggests (page 110) that bridges of a similar construction type (and thus, the same weakness) be retrofitted with acoustic monitoring to detect snapping cables.
Not so much that far South in Denmark, but the wikipedia article mentions a lake in Sweden that has its shores rebounding (moving upwards) at about 2mm per year. The Northern side moves faster so it is effectively tilting.
No, it's not quite "no guess at all". Using gravitational lensing to estimate how much mass there is in a part of a galaxy is pretty smart. It turns out that there sometimes indeed is mass (because the lensing is there) even though it doesn't seem to give off much light.
(But I don't really believe in dark matter, either. It's mostly epicycles and phlogiston.)
Everyone who knows what a microwave is knows microwaving a dog kills it.
How many people do you think realize that pressure can build up in a thermos if leftover food or drink ferments in it?
And even if you know the danger, how do you know if the thermals bottle you are holding is dangerous or not? Should people call the bomb squad every time they see a thermos with unknown contents inside?
That was part of the deal with Apple the record company because otherwise Apple the computer company would infringe on their trademark. The Steves could have renamed their company or taken the deal. They took the deal.
Switzerland has treaties with the EU. The EU would prefer a single treaty, Switzerland prefers lots of piecemeal treaties.
Current political climate in Switzerland is a bit like Brexit before Brexit: lots of populist blathering about how the EU exploits Switzerland so there are lots of votes in being anti-EU and in demanding "fair" deals ("fair" always means "more for me, less for you").
These treaties are currently being renegotiated -- I think some of them technically expired but both sides pretend they are still valid during the negotiations.
There are forces in Switzerland that would like to break one or more of the treaties and keep the others.
The EU won't like that so we got guillotine clauses = if one treaty is no longer valid, none of them are valid, to prevent the Swiss from playing funny games.
One of the Swiss complaints is fair: they provide roads for lots and lots of EU transit traffic.
Didn't happen. The (fairly small) compensatory digging had the effect the engineers had calculated and the water flow actually increased slightly and the Baltic Sea ecosystem is fine -- or at least not harmed by this particular project.
I think we should trust the people who can (and do) make calculations over those who can't (and don't).
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