Science and the City: Review

Science and the City: Review

FPJ BureauUpdated: Thursday, May 30, 2019, 10:25 AM IST
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Title: Science and the City

Author: Laurie Winkless

Published by: Bloomsbury

Pages: 297

Price: Rs. 902

Laurie Winkless starts ‘Science and the City’ by drawing attention to the modern day metropolis, offering the reader a unique perspective, which many of us so readily take for granted. She invites us to look up at the skyscrapers and dissects this view of ours, into an amalgam of building materials, delivering a lucid account of steel, concrete and float glass. Who would have thought, that the structural engineering features of the Burj Khalifa would amount to such interesting reading.

Hers is a scientific mission so she explains in a series of steps for the readers benefit; the foundation, the steel frame, solar control glass, cranes that build themselves and the elevators which make skyscrapers practical. For those who do not know, Winkless informs us that the Burj Khalifa reaches 828 meters (2176 ft) into the sky. Topping out at 163 floors the Burj leaves other building in the shade.

Skeleton wise it is truly impressive – concrete is used from the ground to the 156th floor level with steel from there up. In order to keep the building as stiff as possible the engineers relied on a novel solution – the buttressed core, which serves as the Burj Khalifa’s supporting spine. Bill Baker, chief engineer of the Burj believes, that this technology can take the skyscraper higher – beyond 1km. These facts are just a sampling of the abundant supply the book has in store.

It would be easy to lose ourselves in this sea of technical terms but Winkless manages to keep her balance. Seamlessly, she turns to wind engineering, vortices, vortex shedding, resonant frequency and gives the example of the ‘tuned mass damper’ (TMD). This TMD is situated between the 88th and 92nd floor of the Taipei 101 Tower. It is a 730 ton steel ball (pendulum) to counteract motion in the building. When there is excessive motion in one direction, the ball swings into motion in the opposite direction by leaning into the force; thereby acting as a stabilizer.

In Winkless’s view the city is a vast seemingly living breathing organism, criss crossed with countless veins and arteries – all different, all vital. From the highways and the rail tracks to supplying water to disposing of waste. It is these networks that have shaped our cities and allow them to function. She devotes a chapter to the subject of electricity.

Depending on which city one is living in, electricity might come from burning fossil fuel, hydroelectric or renewable sources (wind or solar) or a mixture of these. The vast majority of city dwellers couldn’t get through their daily routine without consuming a lot of electricity. Winkless takes us into the science of the subject, starting with the flow of electrons.

She goes on to explain the phenomena of static and current electricity. She writes about consumption and states that New York office buildings use most of their energy on basic applications; appliances, lighting, ventilation and refrigeration whereas for residential buildings, which make up the majority of NYC’s building stock, the use is rather different – most of the energy goes into hot water production and space heating. She reveals that there are approximately 15 different sockets currently (no pun intended) in use around the world, delivering either 120v or 240v.

Proceeding logically, she next turns to water. Water is culturally significant with countless civilizations built on or near waterways and many battles fought to control it. Today it is a different battle as population growth and climate change have led to an acute water shortage but we continue to flush volumes of the cleanest water down the drain.  From here it is a short step to talk about food production, waste water, graphene, aerogels, graphene membranes, self-healing polymers, bio retractors, bio solids and bioplastics – all elements to better manage the consumption of water.

Urban areas are now home to half the human race and use an increasing proportion of the earth’s natural resources, so it helps to know how they operate. Winkless enthusiastically delivers her story moving into transportation (roads, bridges, self-healing, concrete, fiber reinforced polymers) and a host of other futuristic developments.

She spends a good amount of time on locomotives, conduction rails, underground rail, tunnel barreling machines (TBM’s), Maglev and sky train travel, before moving into transponders, satellite altimetry, carbon costs and other aspects of the connected world. Tirelessly curious she turn up an array of dazzling developments already in the works, including driverless cars pollution free sources of locally generated energy and an advanced internet of things, in which every device anticipates personal needs.

Cities are built using some of the most creative and revolutionary science and engineering ideas – from the steel structures that touch the sky to the glass cables that help us to communicate at the speed of light – but most of us are too busy to notice. ‘Science and the City’ is your guidebook to this hidden world.

Winkless takes us around cities in six continents to find out how they are dealing with the challenges of feeding, housing, powering and connecting more people than ever before. In his documentary ‘Lo and Behold reveries of the connected world’, Werner Herzog tells us that if all the data transmitted on line for only one day was burned into CD’s, the pile would stretch to Mars and back.

In this book you’ll meet urban pioneers from history, along with today’s experts in everything from roads to time and you will uncover the vital role science has played in shaping the city around you. But more than that, by exploring cutting edge research from labs across the world you’ll build your own vision of the megacity of tomorrow, based on scientific fact rather than science fiction. “Science and the City’ is the perfect read for anyone curious about the world they live in.

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