3 ms·

That's true, but there are also engineering principles at play unrelated to probability. If I squeeze a piece of hard spaghetti on it's ends, would it be easier

That's true, but there are also engineering principles at play unrelated to probability. If I squeeze a piece of hard spaghetti on it's ends, would it be easier to break a 20cm piece of spaghetti or a 1cm piece of spaghetti? 20cm, obviously, and that same principle applies with trains. Longer trains are harder to stop, harder to control, less robust to disturbances. Likewise, if I squeeze a piece of soft spaghetti on its ends, it's harder to predict how it will bend if it's really long than if it's really short. You won't see a 1cm piece of spaghetti contort itself into loops, but a 20cm piece certainly will.

xpe 4y ago
The spaghetti metaphor tells part of the story, though I’ve never seen spaghetti somewhat coupled (constrained) to some kind of path (analogous to a track). > Longer trains are harder to stop, harder to control, less robust to disturbances. All other things equal, this seems plausible, but I’m no expert on trains. So if I studied it, I would likely agree in most cases. However, I do wonder if longer trains, being more massive, do offer some benefits in some cases. Perhaps a disturbance affecting only one car would have less effect because the other cars have more inertia and resist change. This of course relates the question of the design criteria. Clearly trains should be designed with a cost benefit analysis such that more common disturbances can be handled. What kinds of disturbances can and should be planned for?