His "Things I Won't Work With" series on Science (https://www.science.org/topic/blog-category/things-i-wont-wo...) is fun to read. The link in the article itself now unfortunately just points to the science.org homepage so you have to do some clicking around to get to this blog series.
> One problem with this subject is that it tends to lead to bragging contests about who has run the most hazardous reactions. But think about it: if these reactions have all been run for good reasons with the best protective equipment there is less to brag about. And if they haven’t, then the discussion turns into figuring out who has been the biggest fool
I suspect the answer is "bragging rights" in this case.
Fans of this series - and folks who are generally in this post's comments - are likely to enjoy Larry Niven's short story "A Tall Tail": https://reactormag.com/a-tall-tail/
For instance: developing citizens who demonstrate critical thinking, responsibility, organization, independence, collaboration, initiative and self-regulation.
Not all of these are easily measurable, but all contribute to a prosperous and free society.
Yet every non-uni worker seems to develop those skills without going to university.
It would be interesting to measure. Critical thinking in particular doesn't seem to be taught.
I personally believe none of those skills were taught during my own engineering degree. For me it was a lot of simple regurgitation against closed ended test questions. In hindsight mostly a fucking waste of time: a piece of paper to get a job.
I'd recommend listening to Webern's Op. 27, it's a strict 2nd Viennese school 12-tone composition but also very expensive, I love it (although it works better in a concert setting then a recording): https://youtu.be/ZEtqEzPakxA?is=JgbN1lpHF1lxrXOT
Secondary school physics teacher here: The article is conflating power (watt or joule per second) and energy (joule or kilowatt-hour), so any claim they make is nonsense and the article shouldn't be taken seriously. My students make the same mistake all the time but they don't get to publish it :-)
Power is energy per time unit (thus: energy = power x time), so while the power of a lightning strike is very high (~10GW), the overall energy isn't because it only lasts for a very short duration (apparently the duration of a lightning event is hard to define, [1] says about 0,5 seconds, other places mention much shorter durations, ~10us). So if that 10GW lasts for 0,5 seconds, the total energy is 1,4MWh, which is 1/6 to 1/10 of the electrical energy an average American household consumes in a year[2].
Right at the bottom under Frequently Asked Questions:
How much lightning would we need to capture to power the entire U.S. electricity grid?
Merely capturing the energy from 115 lightning strikes would supply all of the U.S.'s annual electricity needs.
Just for fun: 2023 US electrical power generation was 4,178 terawatt-hours [1], or 1.5e19 joules [2]. Divided by 115 that would be approx. 1.3e17 joules. The Hiroshima bomb was 6e13 joules [3]. Which would leave each of those lightning strikes that can supply the US annual electricity needs as outputting approximately 2200 Hiroshima bomb's worth of energy.
I think we'd have a very different relationship to lightning if each of them were 2200 nuke's worth of energy.
Incidentally, this puts the US electrical power generation per year at 250,000 bombs/year, which is an intriguing way of looking at it.
I believe it would be a far greater problem if those people didn't die. Aging populations are a huge problem around the globe and unless we'd improve the quality of life to such a margin that octo- and nonagenarians are able to care for each other, I think we're all better off with people dying of old age.
https://www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/a-risk-not-worth-taki...