Brockton Massachusetts steam boiler explosion

Brief reference as the comparison point for what an ammo-dump lightning strike would look like ("something worse than the Brockton shoe factory"). Not developed in this lecture; treated by Tom as already-known to the class.

Where do we get all these standards? I have a little history story here, hopefully fun for you to read, about lightning protection standards. Ben Franklin in 1752 — he got out there with his kite and his key and almost killed himself. This is a history of lightning protection systems, written by a guy at the US Army in one of their labs in New Jersey. He's an electrical engineer. The US Army is really interested in lightning protection. Anybody know why? They have a lot of ammo dumps. If lightning strikes an ammo dump, you have something that looks even worse than the Brockton shoe factory.

Reference back to a prior lecture's image (the shoe factory boiler explosion). Used here as origin-of-codes example.

Remember how the code came about historically. The code was written because we learned about failures. I showed you the picture of the Brockton, Massachusetts shoe factory. [Tom holds up Henry Petroski's To Engineer Is Human.] Here's Henry Petroski's book — this professor at Duke University, who wrote it about 1980. He's written a bunch of books since. Copyright 1982. To Engineer is Human — he's a civil engineer. He talks about the role of failure in successful design. I'll use an example next week out of this — the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse. None of you were born at that time, I don't think, but it killed a couple hundred people in Kansas City.