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The cheese-loving aviators have the Swiss-cheese-model to visualize how small unimportant errors can stack up to a catastrophic outcome. Though in my opinion th

by TomK32 3y ago

The cheese-loving aviators have the Swiss-cheese-model to visualize how small unimportant errors can stack up to a catastrophic outcome. Though in my opinion there's a flaw in this thinking as no sane cheese seller would shuffle their layers of cheese after cutting them: Hence 1-in-million chances happen all the time. https://www.aviationfile.com/swiss-cheese-model/ https://www.aviationfile.com/swiss-cheese-model/

cduzz 3y ago
You'd think that but the Toledo fondue flood of 1973 says otherwise. I can't find the wiki link, but Ronald O'Sullivan, who'd just taken over his father's cheese shop, was attempting to make a single block of swiss after a long week of selling the first 80% of several blocks to different restaurants. He took those cheese tails and stacked them up, not realizing the dangers he was putting everyone else in. It was later found that there were several other contributing factors; he hadn't used a properly certified cheese cutting blade (baloney!) and had reused the wax liner to store the off-cuts prior to reassembling the cheese that ultimately failed. Some say you can still smell the swiss on hot august days.
- lazystar 3y ago
  Need a source on this, please. It sounds real at first look, but I cant find any links and it's very similar to the boston molasses flood of 1918 story, especially that last bit - "The event entered local folklore and residents reported for decades afterwards that the area still smelled of molasses on hot summer days." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood
  - cduzz 3y ago
    It's 100% made up. It's an attempt to make fun of people who would consider it unlikely that anyone would ever stack cheese as a way to mitigate safety risks.
    - unbalancedevh 3y ago
      'I can't find the wiki link" was a good clue. I'll have to remember that line next time I'm kidding someone!
  - throwup238 3y ago
    Fondue can't cause a flood like the Great Molasses Flood because it's not capable of truly fully laminar flows. Fondue is a colloidal suspension of cheese solids in a mixture of wine and melting agents and it shows complex rheological behavior. Unlike Newtonian fluids, where viscosity remains constant regardless of the applied shear rate, fondue demonstrates non-Newtonian features, especially shear-thinning. As the shear rate increases, its viscosity decreases, a phenomenon attributed to the alignment of colloidal particles in the direction of flow, interfering with the fluid and preventing it from filling every nook and cranny like a flood would. Fondue's inability to achieve truly laminar flow is rooted in its viscoelastic properties. When subjected to stress, fondue exhibits both viscous and elastic characteristics, a behavior modeled by the Maxwell model in rheology. This model combines a viscous damper and an elastic spring to describe the material's response to applied stress. As fondue is subjected to shear stress, its structure becomes disrupted, leading to a breakdown in its ability to maintain a cohesive flow front. This disruption manifests as a turbulent flow, preventing the formation of a flood-like scenario similar to that caused by molasses.
blantonl 3y ago
I am a pilot, and in aviation related topics pilots tend to be almost ridiculously pedantic about stuff. I want to congratulate you on writing the most pedantic thing I've ever read in my life. Truly a masterpiece. I can't wait to bust this out in my next aviation related discussion.
jameshart 3y ago
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it investigated as a mathematical puzzle but there’s probably some interesting number stuff to be found in investigating the mathematics of an idealized swiss cheese risk model. If you take a series of unit squares and from each one remove a random circle (ah, the origin of every protracted probability argument among mathematicians: a random circle selected from which distribution?), then stack them up… after n squares, what is the expected hole size? Or how many squares do you need to stack to reduce the hole size to below a particular threshold? Circle intersection geometry is hard though. Probably easier to start with axis aligned square holes, which are what you get when you make your Swiss cheese out of milk from spherical cows.
- madcaptenor 3y ago
  No, you get axis-aligned square holes when you get your milk from cubical cows.
  - _a_a_a_ 3y ago
    Cows are spherical
    - thesz 3y ago
      Cube is sphere in L_{\inf}.
blt 3y ago
I'm glad I'm not the only one bothered by the implied slice shuffling in this "model". Lol! We need to think of another real world setting where a stack of randomly hole-filled sheets would be naturally shuffled.
- LeifCarrotson 3y ago
  Punch cards? Might be a few years out of date to be readily imagined by an average member of the public.

by TomK32 3y ago

cduzz 3y ago

You'd think that but the Toledo fondue flood of 1973 says otherwise. I can't find the wiki link, but Ronald O'Sullivan, who'd just taken over his father's cheese shop, was attempting to make a single block of swiss after a long week of selling the first 80% of several blocks to different restaurants. He took those cheese tails and stacked them up, not realizing the dangers he was putting everyone else in. It was later found that there were several other contributing factors; he hadn't used a properly certified cheese cutting blade (baloney!) and had reused the wax liner to store the off-cuts prior to reassembling the cheese that ultimately failed. Some say you can still smell the swiss on hot august days.

lazystar 3y ago
Need a source on this, please. It sounds real at first look, but I cant find any links and it's very similar to the boston molasses flood of 1918 story, especially that last bit - "The event entered local folklore and residents reported for decades afterwards that the area still smelled of molasses on hot summer days." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood
- cduzz 3y ago
  It's 100% made up. It's an attempt to make fun of people who would consider it unlikely that anyone would ever stack cheese as a way to mitigate safety risks.
  - unbalancedevh 3y ago
    'I can't find the wiki link" was a good clue. I'll have to remember that line next time I'm kidding someone!
- throwup238 3y ago
  Fondue can't cause a flood like the Great Molasses Flood because it's not capable of truly fully laminar flows. Fondue is a colloidal suspension of cheese solids in a mixture of wine and melting agents and it shows complex rheological behavior. Unlike Newtonian fluids, where viscosity remains constant regardless of the applied shear rate, fondue demonstrates non-Newtonian features, especially shear-thinning. As the shear rate increases, its viscosity decreases, a phenomenon attributed to the alignment of colloidal particles in the direction of flow, interfering with the fluid and preventing it from filling every nook and cranny like a flood would. Fondue's inability to achieve truly laminar flow is rooted in its viscoelastic properties. When subjected to stress, fondue exhibits both viscous and elastic characteristics, a behavior modeled by the Maxwell model in rheology. This model combines a viscous damper and an elastic spring to describe the material's response to applied stress. As fondue is subjected to shear stress, its structure becomes disrupted, leading to a breakdown in its ability to maintain a cohesive flow front. This disruption manifests as a turbulent flow, preventing the formation of a flood-like scenario similar to that caused by molasses.

blantonl 3y ago

I am a pilot, and in aviation related topics pilots tend to be almost ridiculously pedantic about stuff. I want to congratulate you on writing the most pedantic thing I've ever read in my life. Truly a masterpiece. I can't wait to bust this out in my next aviation related discussion.

jameshart 3y ago

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it investigated as a mathematical puzzle but there’s probably some interesting number stuff to be found in investigating the mathematics of an idealized swiss cheese risk model. If you take a series of unit squares and from each one remove a random circle (ah, the origin of every protracted probability argument among mathematicians: a random circle selected from which distribution?), then stack them up… after n squares, what is the expected hole size? Or how many squares do you need to stack to reduce the hole size to below a particular threshold? Circle intersection geometry is hard though. Probably easier to start with axis aligned square holes, which are what you get when you make your Swiss cheese out of milk from spherical cows.

madcaptenor 3y ago
No, you get axis-aligned square holes when you get your milk from cubical cows.
- _a_a_a_ 3y ago
  Cows are spherical
  - thesz 3y ago
    Cube is sphere in L_{\inf}.

blt 3y ago

I'm glad I'm not the only one bothered by the implied slice shuffling in this "model". Lol! We need to think of another real world setting where a stack of randomly hole-filled sheets would be naturally shuffled.

LeifCarrotson 3y ago
Punch cards? Might be a few years out of date to be readily imagined by an average member of the public.