Re:Is It Possible to Build an "Unsinkable" Ship?
by jdietrich on Monday April 16, 2012 @11:26AM
(#3847758)
This. It's a classic risk-reward tradeoff. We can make most things much safer than they are, but we generally accept a lower level of safety for practical reasons.
Formula 1 racing was once one of the most dangerous activities on earth. Before the 1980s, a driver had a greater than 1 in 20 chance of dying in any given year. Since the death of Ayrton Senna in 1994, there has not been a single death in the sport.
We could achieve a similar change in the number of automobile-related deaths on public roads, but we consider the costs to be prohibitive. The public just aren't prepared to buy cars with roll-cages and bucket seats and multipoint harnesses. Not unreasonably, most people won't wear a helmet and a HANS device on their commute.
No-compromise engineering is often surprisingly straightforward. The hard bit tends to be working out the best compromise between your various design goals.
Formula 1 racing was once one of the most dangerous activities on earth. Before the 1980s, a driver had a greater than 1 in 20 chance of dying in any given year. Since the death of Ayrton Senna in 1994, there has not been a single death in the sport.
We could achieve a similar change in the number of automobile-related deaths on public roads, but we consider the costs to be prohibitive. The public just aren't prepared to buy cars with roll-cages and bucket seats and multipoint harnesses. Not unreasonably, most people won't wear a helmet and a HANS device on their commute.
No-compromise engineering is often surprisingly straightforward. The hard bit tends to be working out the best compromise between your various design goals.