Pedestrian Feedback
From a fascinating exchange between Carlo Ratti and Steve Strogatz in the new issue of Seed, I found this bit particularly curious:
“SS: What I’m worried about is exactly what you put your finger on, feedback loops. In the world of dynamical systems, from a mathematical standpoint, feedback loops, especially in complex systems, can be really scary. Because of their unintended consequences. They can create all the beauty and richness in the world around us as well as unforeseen horrors. Just to take a super simple example of what I’m thinking of here, look at the Millennium Bridge in London: one of the world’s thinnest foot bridges and a very elegant structure. All the architects agreed that it was gorgeous, but it looked like it wanted to vibrate, like it was practically a guitar string strung across the Thames River. And on opening day when people walked across the bridge it wobbled a little bit. Which then fed to the people, and made them tend to synchronize their footfalls with the bridge’s motion, which made the bridge’s motion worse. None of this was supposed to happen. This was not built in.”
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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 8th, 2009 at 5:45 pm and is filed under Pedestrians. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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