Don et al,
Thanks for the links. Very good stuff - I would encourage everyone to
read Benford's excellent article as cited by Don.
...my take is one of puzzlement. I should think that the uncertainty
built into the design question of designing something to last 10k yrs
is so great, that I would advise it wiser to spend whatever a suitable
message would cost to simply find better near term solutions -
alternatives to nuclear power to lower the ongoing production of
nuclear waste, and the development of reactors that can burn the
existent waste and thus eliminate it.
Cheers.
Fil
On 27 March 2011 05:25, Don Norman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Ah yes, I do remember the project: how to put up a sign that will tell
> people 10,000 years from now that this area is dangerous. So I did
> what the rest of you seemed not to have thought of: I used the exotic,
> unfamiliar technology called google. I immediately found a lot.
>
> (As i was writing this, Jeffrey Chan posted a reference
> Nolin, J. (1993). Communicating with the Future: Implications for
> Nuclear Waste Disposal. Futures. Vol. 25, No. 7, pp.778-791.
>
> Editorial rant:
> But hey, in this modern age, don't you really hate it, dear reader,
> when someone fails to give a URL? to me, that makes the reference
> useless. Sitting in my hotel room in Florence, italy, what can i do
> with that reference?
>
> If you google the title, you can find the article, and science direct
> will sell you a copy for only US$ 42. (if you are lucky, your library
> has a subscription. Science is supposed to be free!)
>
> End of editorial rant:
> ----
>
> Here is what i found -- all of which are free.
>
> If you want a free authoritative study that covers the same topic that
> Jeffrey suggested, try:
> http://www.andra.fr/download/andra-international-en/document/editions/381-va.pdf
>
> Here is a short review
> http://www.grist.org/article/stang/
>
> here is a slightly better one:
> http://www.damninteresting.com/this-place-is-not-a-place-of-honor
>
> and best of all:
> http://www.physics.uci.edu/~silverma/benford.html
>
> This last one is a wonderful article by Gregory Benford, a physicist
> at University of California, Irvine, but also a very well known
> science fiction author. Read his entire article -- it is a wonderful
> design case study. Here is one part i particularly like:
[....]
--
Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University
350 Victoria St, Toronto, ON
M5B 2K3, Canada
Tel: 416/979-5000 ext 7749
Fax: 416/979-5265
Email: [log in to unmask]
http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/
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