Updated Equations

One of the libraries was sinking.

This is the story I was told when I became a freshman at Brown University. The tale that was sold was that the architects and engineers hadn’t factored in the weight of the books. This meant that the building weighs more than the land can handle and that every year it sinks a tiny amount.

This lie has been told about a lot of different buildings over the years. None of the rumours turns out to be true but it is a fun story.

There are many other stories of people screwing up the equation to disappointing results.

The Gimli Glider

Air Canada Flight 143, which is also known as the Gimli Glider was a Boeing 767 aircraft flying from Montreal and Edmonton. Because of a unit conversion error, it only had 45% of the fuel it needed.

This error happened when the ground crew added the weight of the fuel in pounds and not kgs.

Luckily, Captain Bob Pearson had gliding experience and successfully got the plane to a former Royal Canadian air force base in Gimli, Manitoba. They had no serious injuries to any passengers or people on the ground.

Several crews attempted the same situation in simulators and all crashed.

Thurst

How would you feel if you were responsible for losing a $125 million Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft?

That is what happened when Lockheed Martin was sending thrust data in English Units (pounds) but Nasa was thinking they were getting Newtons. The ship went slowly off course and someone got a very stern phone call.

Equations and Ability

The challenge is figuring out if you are using the right equation.

Are you figuring out the right question? Do you have the ability to figure that out?

Sometimes people only answer questions they know they can answer. They stay safe, they don’t grow, they don’t try anything new.

Others slave away at impossible problems that they have no hope of solving.

The sweet spot is attempting a problem that you don’t know the answer but you have the ability to potentially solve it.

Then going back often to figure out if it is the right equation for that problem and if it is the correct problem to be solving.