E-Books →Rational Accidents Reckoning with Catastrophic Technologies

Free Download Rational Accidents: Reckoning with Catastrophic Technologies
English | 2023 | ISBN: 026254699X | 341 Pages | PDF (True) | 6.5 MB
Nuclear reactors, deep-sea drilling platforms, deterrence infrastructures-these are all complex and formidable technologies with the potential to fail catastrophically. In Rational Accidents, John Downer outlines a new perspective on technological failure, arguing that undetectable errors can lurk in even the most rigorous and "rational" assessments of these systems due to the inherent limits of engineering tests and models. Downer finds that it should be impossible, from an epistemological viewpoint, to achieve the near-perfect reliability that we require of our most safety-critical technologies. There is, however, one such technology that demonstrably appears to achieve these "impossible" reliabilities: jetliners.