4 ms·

Yeaaaah, like that wouldn't have any unintended consequences. Meanwhile, I find this more interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Army_Corps_of_Enginee

Yeaaaah, like that wouldn't have any unintended consequences. Meanwhile, I find this more interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Army_Corps_of_Engineers_Bay_Model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Army_Corps_of_Engineers_B... The Army Corps of Engineers literally built a scale model of the San Francisco Bay Area, and they used it to figure out that damming the SF Bay was a very, very bad idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i70wkxmumAw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i70wkxmumAw

ethbr0 6y ago
Also the Mississippi River Basin on 200 acres near Clinton, Mississippi (1:100 vertical and 1:2000 horizontal). [0] In the absence of accurate computation modeling (either hardware or physics models) in the 1940s-70s, it's a pretty ingenious way to simulate complex hydraulic systems. And as for Atlantropa, think about it in these terms: (a) a large, funded public-works program in Europe, just as the Nazi Party was gaining support and before the Spanish Civil War, (b) substantial amount of cheap, carbon-free energy for Europe and North Africa by now, & (c) a pan-European effort ~50 years before most EU structures. You'd have a hard time convincing me that would have been doomed to turn out worse than actual history. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_River_Basin_Model https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_River_Basin_Mode...
- pmiller2 6y ago
  I didn't know about that one. Are there other scale models of large, physical hydrodynamic systems out there?
  - ethbr0 6y ago
    I'm not as familiar with international flood mitigation projects, but I'd expect any built before ~1990(?) had something similar, albeit in varied scale. It's interesting that the Mississippi model's scale was specifically chosen to minimize unrealistic effects of surface tension, that might have dominated at a smaller scale. (But it was the 1940s, and I'm sure we know more about surface tension and hydrodynamics now)
- billfruit 6y ago
  What software system would be used to do the same modelling and study if it had to be done today?
potiuper 6y ago
The Reber plan <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reber_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reber_Plan> did not intend to "dam the [entire] SF Bay". Off topic, is there a reason why comments do not support HTML anchor elements?
- wadkar 6y ago
  Comments do not support HTML. I would imagine Too many issues with parsing, injection/security etc.

ethbr0 6y ago

Also the Mississippi River Basin on 200 acres near Clinton, Mississippi (1:100 vertical and 1:2000 horizontal). [0] In the absence of accurate computation modeling (either hardware or physics models) in the 1940s-70s, it's a pretty ingenious way to simulate complex hydraulic systems. And as for Atlantropa, think about it in these terms: (a) a large, funded public-works program in Europe, just as the Nazi Party was gaining support and before the Spanish Civil War, (b) substantial amount of cheap, carbon-free energy for Europe and North Africa by now, & (c) a pan-European effort ~50 years before most EU structures. You'd have a hard time convincing me that would have been doomed to turn out worse than actual history. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_River_Basin_Model https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_River_Basin_Mode...

pmiller2 6y ago
I didn't know about that one. Are there other scale models of large, physical hydrodynamic systems out there?
- ethbr0 6y ago
  I'm not as familiar with international flood mitigation projects, but I'd expect any built before ~1990(?) had something similar, albeit in varied scale. It's interesting that the Mississippi model's scale was specifically chosen to minimize unrealistic effects of surface tension, that might have dominated at a smaller scale. (But it was the 1940s, and I'm sure we know more about surface tension and hydrodynamics now)
billfruit 6y ago
What software system would be used to do the same modelling and study if it had to be done today?

potiuper 6y ago

The Reber plan <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reber_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reber_Plan> did not intend to "dam the [entire] SF Bay". Off topic, is there a reason why comments do not support HTML anchor elements?

wadkar 6y ago
Comments do not support HTML. I would imagine Too many issues with parsing, injection/security etc.