Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

daily.jstor.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 158 posts

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#101

Post by snypher »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #77
b800h wrote: post #22

If these Miyake events were so spectacular, why do they not appear in the historical record? I appreciate that 774 was in the "dark ages" but something as impressive as the Carrington event would appear in some chronicles, surely? EDIT: Sorry, checked Wikipedia: "Annus Domini (the year of the Lord) 774. This year the Northumbrians banished their king, Alred, from York at Easter-tide; and chose Ethelred, the son of Mu…

Some random Australian gold prospector wrote about his experience (quoting Wikipedia): Lights of every imaginable color were issuing from the southern heavens, one color fading away only to give place to another if possible more beautiful than the last, the streams mounting to the zenith, but always becoming a rich purple when reaching there, and always curling round, leaving a clear strip of sky, which may be descri…

But this was not in reference to the 774AD event surely! Do you have a citation for the above quote?

Edit: you probably meant the Carrington event, I am starting my next coffee now.

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#102

Post by pixl97 »

snypher wrote: post #101
tomjakubowski wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some random Australian gold prospector wrote about his experience (quoting Wikipedia): Lights of every imaginable color were issuing from the southern heavens, one color fading away only to give place to another if possible more beautiful than the last, the streams mounting to the zenith, but always becoming a rich purple when reaching there, and always curling round, leaving a clear strip of sky, which may be descri…

But this was not in reference to the 774AD event surely! Do you have a citation for the above quote? Edit: you probably meant the Carrington event, I am starting my next coffee now.

If I spoke the language and or wanted to look into it, I'd recommend Chinese or Japanese historical records. They tend to have very long historical weather/solar observations. Possibly India too, but they may be too far south to see the effects.

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#103

Post by rootusrootus »

Turskarama wrote: post #13
dskrepps wrote: post #9

I've wondered for a while. Lots of people seem to think a Carrington Event will simply fry all small electronics and make everything stop working, but from my understanding all it'll actually do is cause power surges in long transmission lines and disrupt wireless signals. Apparently telegraph lines sparked and shocked people. So what effect will that actually have now? Will a massive power surge go through my house…

The big risk is a bunch of transformers blow up, essentially taking the grid down. Since we would have to bootstrap the grid again without the advantage of the grid... this would likely set civilization back pretty far, a new dark age is far from impossible.

Fixing the transformers would be the difficult part. Restarting a completely blacked out grid is a scenario we have plans for. Off the top of my head, I know for sure that Bonneville Dam has black start turbines, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if all major hydroelectric dams provide the same ability.

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#104

Post by pixl97 »

ianburrell wrote: post #99
Turskarama wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big risk is a bunch of transformers blow up, essentially taking the grid down. Since we would have to bootstrap the grid again without the advantage of the grid... this would likely set civilization back pretty far, a new dark age is far from impossible.

I read that it is fairly easy to protect equipment by grounding it. But that requires properly grounding lots of gear, and the power companies aren't willing to spend the money. Also, the Carrington event has plenty of notice before arrives at Earth. It would be possible to shut down the grid, and maybe disconnect all the transformers. It would require a cold start, but better to shutdown for a day than forever. The…

A Carrington event has notice, but there are plenty of, rather low probability, space weather events with no notice that can do the same thing. It's best if you're not facing down the barrel of a quasar.

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#105

Post by pixl97 »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #30
Turskarama wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is there are very few transformers in a disassembled state ready to go. Solar panels would be fine, but they're effectively useless without the ability to deliver power. Covid was enough to create an international backlog of transformers, and that was with a normal rate of attrition.

Exactly this. Lets say there were a few transformers that did survive. The parts to make new transformers are manufactured all over the place. So you would need to transport the 'working' transformers where they are needed to get power back to each plant that manufactures some singular component that goes into a new transformer. AND Transport them, when gas stations in-between are all also without power. The global s…

Heh, when you start thinking about how much fuel is needed to make fuel it turns into a gnawing concern in your mind.

Then add in how little food most people have available and you see how modern civilization will end.

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#106

Post by pixl97 »

toss1 wrote: post #89
dan_mctree wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's not nearly enough transformers in reserve to properly rebuild the grid and you can't always just drop in and replace either. New transformers are also not currently able to be produced fast, and having society collapse around you probably wouldn't help while trying to increase their production rate. If we'd lose most transformers, it could be many months or years before large regions could see their power bac…

THIS!! It would be relatively cheap (I've reak ~$500million) to build and store a mostly complete replacement set of transformers. The difference it would make in a Carrington+ event (or a EMP nuclear attack) is insane. Without them, likely the grid collapses for years, along with distribution, food, etc. Millions die in the years-decades it takes to recover. With the transformer standby inventory, critical parts of…

Honestly this is one of those events where billions could possibly die.

Green revolution. The level of food we need requires nitrogen. This is broken down by natural gas into fertilizer and requires immense amount of energy and transportation. When the grid gets knocked out, you're on a countdown till you run out of gas/petrol. If you don't get enough power back up before this happens you're running into a game over situation. Once fuel runs low and food runs out, people will start killing each other in massive amounts to deal with the resource constrained world they live in. Once enough electrical engineers die then the system doesn't come back up.

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#107

Post by pixl97 »

dghughes wrote: post #91
dividedbyzero wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't transformers protected from this sort of thing nowadays?

I'm not sure if you can. Transformers are basically two differing loops of wire separated by a space. It relies on the EMF of each loop to transfer energy from one loop to the other. If a strong enough pulse comes along it may be too powerful to block. Like trying to stop lightning with a $100 UPS or any UPS to stop a millions of volts and tens of thousands of amps.

If its disconnected from a grid and grounded it shouldn't be an issue... and if the pulse is that powerful to deal with it being grounded it's very likely we've lost most of the atmosphere at that point making the entire subject moot.

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#108

Post by rootusrootus »

housebear wrote: post #95

Check out A Canticle for Leibowitz for an entertaining (and often depressing) read on life restarting after an extinction event. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Canticle_for_Leibowitz "Set in a Catholic monastery in the desert of the southwestern United States after a devastating nuclear war, the book spans thousands of years as civilization rebuilds itself. The monks of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz preserve the…

And then of course after mankind recovers and rebuilds to the same technological level, they start another nuclear war. Figures.

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#109

Post by ambicapter »

klondike_klive wrote: post #16
HerculePoirot wrote: post #2

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/3165629_Characteris... I'm reading this critical analysis of it (2013): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/292848789_Geometry_... > The interpretation of individual rock art images and related art forms as local perspectives on a single celestial phenomenon requires a determination of scale, perspective, and temporal evolution. Peratt interpreted dotted circles and conce…

> Peratt interpreted dotted circles and concentric circles as bottom-up renditions of a diocotron instability affecting the hollow outer sheets of the z-pinch I love this sentence. I am pretty inarticulate in person, sometimes I fantasise myself delivering lines like this in a hastily erected mobile command centre. "In English, please, professor?" growls a FBI agent. My acolyte pushes their glasses up "uh... uh... if…

You're just a screenplay away from playing your dream self in a movie.

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#110

Post by pixl97 »

Aardwolf wrote: post #60
Turskarama wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big risk is a bunch of transformers blow up, essentially taking the grid down. Since we would have to bootstrap the grid again without the advantage of the grid... this would likely set civilization back pretty far, a new dark age is far from impossible.

> Since we would have to bootstrap the grid again without the advantage of the grid That sounds exactly like what happens in the game Satisfactory when your nuclear power plant got clogged and you only find out when it's too late!

Thank goodness v8 has grid priorities. Though it would be a massive pain in the ass if you had to go across the map and replace each one of those transformers if an event happened.
Post reply on HN