3 ms·
Nah, the building is (mostly) just as good at the end of that time. It's just a convenience to make the probabilities easier to conceptualize. If we designed bu
by cmsmith 8y ago
Nah, the building is (mostly) just as good at the end of that time. It's just a convenience to make the probabilities easier to conceptualize. If we designed buildings such that the design earthquake had a 5e-6 daily chance of occurring, we'd just be confused.
- chris_va 8y agoThis reminds me of my favorite unit of measurement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort If there is a 10% chance of collapse every 2475 years, that is ~1.1/10million per day chance, or 0.11 micromorts. That assumes 100% death during a collapse, and that the person spends all day in one of these buildings. 0.11 micromorts/day is very low, which makes the design criteria reasonable. Of course, I suspect our ability to predict infrequent events with any degree of accuracy is unlikely.