Article: 261526 of talk.bizarre
From: Andrew Solberg <andsol@cml.rice.edu>
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre
Subject: 53x100
Date: 1 Dec 1995 21:36:08 -0500
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LIBERTY SHIPS
*************

We forgot the lesson of the liberty ships.

They were hastily built, needed immediately for wartime duty.
Hulls were welded into one continuous plate of metal -- a mistake
that would prove costly.  The rhythmic pounding of waves upon the
liberty ships created cyclic stresses that formed cracks.  Once
critical crack length was reached, the ships broke in half and
sank. 

How could we remember the liberty ships, yet ignore the fact that
every day cyclic stresses, in the form of tidal forces, knead our
planet like a ball of dough?

The crack just crossed the equator.  We'll see it soon.

-- 
This post is COPYRIGHT 1995, Andrew Solberg.  All rights reserved.
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Andrew Solberg is HWRNMNBSOL: andsol@cml.rice.edu, Math Dept., Rice U.