The Emperor Has No Clothes

The impact of the Trump's executive order on the admission of citizens from the 7 countries continues to be felt and the topic of conversation in many college campuses, science labs, and conferences. But something triggered in my head when I read this Washington Post news article on how this ban would not have prevented the attacks in the US since Sept. 11. When I read this, I immediately remembered a similar scenario, and this is where I connect it to the theme of this blog.

Back in, oh, I forget exactly when, probably mid-2000s, there was a laser accident at a lab (I'm not gonna name names). I'm going to rely on my memory based on what I read as the official report on the accident, and from what I heard from a friend who happened to know the person involved.

To set up the scenario, most, if not the majority, of laser accident occurred when the laser is running and the safety mode is bypassed. The most frequent reason for doing this is that the laser is either being worked on, being repaired, being serviced, or the most common occurrence, it is being aligned. People who are authorized to do this are usually trained, and had to undergo safety classes to ensure that they know what they are doing.

What happened in this accident, from what I remember, is that this person, along with at least one other person, was doing a typical laser alignment. He was wearing a pair of safety glasses as required, which protected his eyes in case there were stray beam hitting his face. Unfortunately, while in the middle of doing this work (which was part of the standard operating procedure of the facility), he had an itch around his eyes. In a moment where instinct took over, before he had time to think about it, he reached inside his safety glasses with his hand to rub his eyes, causing the safety glasses to be lifted off his face. Unfortunately, without realizing it, a beam of the laserwas, at that time, pointing straight at him. It only happened probably less than a second, but it was enough that the laser hit his eyes and sufficient to cause damage.

I'm not going to go into detail of what happened immediately afterwards, because it isn't relevant to this story. So of course, after this incident is reported, the lab issued a lab-wide stand-down, and all operations of Class 2b laser and higher had to stop. We were told to evaluate our laser operations and safety procedure, and we had to get reauthorized before we can continue work. At the same time, all personnel that are involved in any laser work had to attend a safety seminar.

So I sat through this safety seminar where they described the accident, emphasize the need for us to work safely, re-enforce the requirements for safety procedure... etc...etc. But at the same time, in response to the accident, they produced a whole new set of policy and procedures for all laser facilities. We had to have yearly inspection, yearly authorization, and new documentation of our procedure and safety analysis. In other words, new set of administrative controls were introduced.

Of course, as you can guess, there were groans in the audience, because it meant that there would be more bureaucratic paperwork and administrative hoops that we had to go through. During the Q&A session, several people asked questions, and one could tell that a lot of people in the audience weren't too pleased by this. Finally, and this is where I came, in, I raised my hand, and asked something like this:

"So how would any of the new procedures that were introduced prevented this accident?"

Now, looking back on it afterwards, I would describe the audience reaction to my question as what I imagined would happen when someone finally yelled that the Emperor had no clothes. In this case, the Emperor truly had no clothes. It was an unfortunate accident, but no amount of training, regulation, safety briefing, paperwork, review, etc. would have prevented it, because that was something instinctual. The new administrative policy that was put in place didn't make any of us who work with these lasers any safer. I certainly didn't feel any safer than before. Yet, this was imposed upon us. It wasn't to make us any safer or to prevent any accident. It is simply to placate the higher-ups, the stakeholders, the policy makers, the regulators, the administrators, and finally and ultimately, the politicians (if they decided to look into this). They can say that they implemented this and that after the accident to make them look good. The rest of us who are actually doing the work get saddled with more paperwork and more hoops to jump through.

I'm certain that this isn't new, and that many people have gone through such similar situations where what is being done in the name of something really isn't effective and may miss the mark. Often times, we simply go along just to make the administration happy so that we can move on and continue with our work. But it still means that the Emperor has no clothes, and sometime, someone really needs to stand up and points out this ridiculousness.

Zz.

Physics of Crashes

This type of class is an excellent opportunity to teach students physics and traffic safety at the same time.

Teacher Sheryl Cordivari said teaching students about Newton’s laws, inertia and the science behind how seat belts and airbags save lives helps prepare them for problem solving in real life.

“I go over the equations in class … I think this helps show them that what I’m teaching them is not just to make their lives difficult and drive them crazy, but to show them this is real and has a real-life applications,” she said.
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Although high speeds can be a factor in many accidents, even crashes at 40 mph are extremely dangerous.

“Driving at 40 miles per hour, does it feel dangerous?” he asked the students. “But would you jump off a five-story building?”

The speeds at impact are similar, he said.

There are a lot of things here that the students can relate to, and that is the best way to teach new things if you want them to sink in. In fact, I know of many adults who could stand to have such lessons as well.

Zz.

The Physics Of High-Speed Trains

While the accident in Spain is certainly a tragedy, it is also an opportunity to examine the physics involved for us to understand a bit more of a possible cause of the accident. This article in The New Yorker has a simple enough description of it that anyone without any mathematics or science degree can understand. It tries to explain why there is speed requirement or limit of curved tracks.

One of those forces is centrifugal (“to flee from the center”) force, the inertia that makes a body on a curved path want to continue outward in a straight line. It’s what keeps passengers in their seats on a looping roller coaster and throws unsecured kids off carousels. Centrifugal force is a function of the square of the train’s velocity divided by the radius of the curve; the smaller and tighter the curve, or the faster the train, the greater the centrifugal force. As it increases, more and more of the weight of the train is transferred to the wheels on the outermost edge of the track, something even the best-built trains have trouble coping with. That’s where the concepts of minimum curve radius and super-elevation, or banking, come in.

Banked curves, in which the outer edge of the track is higher than the inner edge, balance the load on the train’s suspension. Since gravity pulls a train downward and centrifugal force pulls it outward, a track banked at just the right angle can spread the forces more evenly between a train’s inner and outer wheels, and help to keep it on the track.

But banking the tracks isn’t a cure-all—a passenger train can tilt only so far before people fall out of their seats. So the minimum curve radius comes into play. Imagine that a curved portion of track is actually running along the outer edge of a large circle. How big must that circle be to insure that a train’s centrifugal force can be managed with only a reasonable amount of banking? 

It is interesting to note that this is the type of question that we deal with in first year intro physics.

Zz.

Lessons from Fukushima

There will be a panel discussion on the Fukushima nuclear disaster today at 4:00 pm US CDT. The live webcast can be followed at that web link.

Japan's Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan have caused the world to reconsider nuclear energy and its place in global energy policy. The University of Chicago Alumni Association, in conjunction with Argonne National Laboratory and the Harris Energy Policy Institute, invite you to join us for a live discussion and simultaneous webcast that will explore the impact of nuclear energy, now and in the future. The discussion will explore the topic from a variety of perspectives, including climate and ecology, economics, history, policy, safety, and science and technology. The panel includes:

* Mark Peters, Deputy Director of Argonne National Laboratory (Moderator)
* Kennette Benedict, Executive Director of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
* Hussein Khalil, Director of the Nuclear Energy Division at Argonne National Laboratory
* Robert Topel, Isidore Brown and Gladys J. Brown Distinguished Service Professor in Urban and Labor Economics, Chicago Booth School of Business, and Director, University of Chicago Energy Initiative.

Zz.

Another Tragic Death of US Science Student

The tragic death of a US undergraduate physics student at Yale this past week brought back memories of another tragic death a couple of years ago at UCLA. In that earlier blog entry, I mentioned that, due to the less stringent training and safety review process at most universities, I'm surprised that such an accident doesn't occur more often. Unfortunately, they are.

I think everyone working in the field, except for theorists, needs to be told that there are aspects of doing science that can be dangerous if one isn't paying careful attention. A simple rubbing of one's eye while doing laser alignment can cause an accidental exposure of one's eye to that laser light. Many things can go wrong, and many times, they do when one isn't properly trained or be made aware of of the hazards. Luckily, most of the accidents are minor, but some time, it takes only one mistake to result in such tragic consequence.

As an experimentalist, my main focus has always been the work. But luckily, even though it can be annoying, the constant hammering of safety issues and the hazards that I face each day while at work do result in my conscious awareness of what I do and how I do it. When you deal with something where a serious mistake can lead to a life-or-death situation, you tend to want all the information you can get before doing the work.

One would hope that with this latest accident, universities will pay even more attention on how graduate students are trained to safely do their work.

Zz.

Building a Culture of Safety

I mentioned earlier about the tragic accident at a UCLA lab that cost the life of a researcher. I will say that this accident isn't unique, and that the culture of very lax safety concerns at universities is more of the norm rather than the exception.

Science Career section this week has an article on the culture of safety, or the lack thereof, at many educational institution. It basically reiterates what I had written. One only needs to go to many of the user facilities at various US Nat'l labs, and talk to personnel in charge of safety at these facilities. They'll tell you some of the problems they often have with users coming in from educational institutions who simply consider safety guidelines and enforcement as being nothing more than hindrance to their jobs.

Certainly the safety paranoia can be taken to an extreme. But for me, I'd rather know what I should be doing, rather than being left bumbling in the dark and not know what is the proper way of doing something, or where I can go to seek assistance when I don't know. After all, the person that has the greatest vested interest in my safety is not the safety officer, not my boss, and not the institution that I'm working for. That person is ME!

Zz.

Lab Safety

Science Magazine this week had a tragic coverage of the accident that happened at UCLA's chemistry lab where a research assistant died due to the injuries she sustained while doing work. And in the news appearing today, UCLA has been fined by the state's safety body due to this accident.

For many of us experimentalists who went through doing research work at our various institutions while we were graduate students, 'safety' was almost unheard of. We tend to learn what to do from either other graduate students, a postdoc, or if we're lucky, from our supervisors. The safety aspect was never a formal part of our training or work. Some time a senior graduate student would tell us what to do or what not to do when he or she thought it was appropriate. But mainly, there were often no formal training in safety in the lab.

If you then work at a US Nat'l Lab, the culture is the reverse. Before you even lift a finger to do something, you are already inundated with a series of safety orientation and then a bunch of safety training courses that are commensurate with what you will be doing. Many people (and sometime, including me) moaned the chore of going through this myriad of safety course. But even when I really don't feel like going through it, in the back of my mind, I actually appreciate the fact that I at least know what is a safe practice and what isn't, and I at least know WHERE to seek assistance in case that I'm not sure what to do. This is because I am being made aware of the support organization that has been designed to help me with such information. To me, that is the single most important realization in working in a research lab, especially when one is dealing with potentially dangerous situations.

Such support system isn't available, or at least, not well-established at most universities. I know that I went through college without knowing that there was even such a thing as "health and safety" section of the school that was supposed to monitor lab safety and safe practices. We just went in and do our work under the assumption that what we're doing isn't dangerous. I bet, right now, that if you go around various university labs and research areas, you'll find numerous OBVIOUS safety violations (I'm not talking about nit-picking small ones). Do you see gas cylinders unsecured to an immovable structure? Or what about an extension cord connected to another extension cord? Or having cryogenics and compressed gas in tight, confined working space?

I'm surprised there aren't many more of these type of accidents happening in college labs. Or maybe there are many more smaller accidents that just do not get reported or do not the same level of publicity.

Zz.