QUOTE (On the edge @ Jun 4 2016, 09:01 PM)
....and did you actually voice your concerns to the organisers?
Seeing something they haven't and pointing it out at the time is what I'd term 'acting responsibility'.
No, I saw the aftermath, and videos of the collapse.
QUOTE (Simon Kirby @ Jun 4 2016, 11:46 PM)
There's some interiesting physics there.
It's atmospheric pressure that lifts an aircraft wing - as the wing moves through the air the profile of the wing causes the air to flow over the top of the wing faster than it flows under the wing, and this creates a partial vacuum on the top of the wing (the Bernoulli effect). With atmospheric pressure of 100,000 Newtons per square meter you don't need much of a partial vacuum to lift a 500,000 Newton aircraft with 100m2 of wing - it just needs 5,000 Pa of differential pressure across the wing to lift the aircraft.
Wind blowing against a surface is different, because now the pressure on the surface is created by the change in momentum of the air. Call the air density p and the wind velocity v, and then the pressure = force/area = d/dt mv/area = pv^2 - so with air density of say 1.2 kg/m^3m^3 the wind needs to be blowing at sqrt(5,000/1.2) = 65m/s which is around 150 miles per hour to create the same differential pressure that lifts a Boeing 737. But that's over simplified the argument, because the momentum isn't all given over to the surface as the wind blows around a structure.
A 10 mph wind (that's a force three, "gentle breeze") on the other hand produces a maximum pressure of 24 Pa, which is a force of 2,400 N, or the weight of 240kg over the area of a 737's wings.
Interesting. I'm surprised at your values for the force generated by wind.
I ultimately base my assertion that the tethering was inadequate on the rather compelling evidence that the bloody thing fell over!
Seems the artist has form, and other structures of his have also collapsed.
Another interesting point is that an area was taped off, presumably to protect the public in the event of a collapse. The tower fell across, and outside, the tape. From my experience of geometry things that are X feet high, which topple, then become X feet long. They seem to have missed this point.
Anyway, perhaps I am getting carried away and am missing the point of the work of art. It is a comment on the transience of art, of buildings, and I guess, the transience of people if they get squished.