Spain builds submarine 70 tons too heavy due to wrong decimal (2013)
I’m terrified of making one of these ‘big picture’ mistakes. I’ve long been weary of the fact that there is a surprising amount of engineering going on without scrutiny or peer review. And over reliance on computer modelling and increasing complexity makes it less and less easy to grasp the big picture.Just yesterday I made a trivial error crunching some numbers for when a construction site could turn off their dewatering. Quite the opposite of this submarine, my structure would be 1000s of kips too buoyant and could potentially float up out of its excavation due to hydrostatic forces. A mistake like going unnoticed could easily be a career-ender.