A mathematician might’ve figured out how to stop tsunamis in their tracks… or at least dampen their power. Image: Sean Davey
Back in 2004, I was in the middle of a three-month trip to Indonesia. It was Christmas time, and we were happily moving through the country drunk, sunburned, and surfed out. The day after Christmas was the luckiest day of my life.
As you probably remember, December 26th was the day of the Indian Ocean tsunami that took something like a quarter of a million lives from fourteen countries. Indonesia was the hardest hit, and we weren’t affected in the slightest. In fact, we didn’t even know it happened until a few days later when we went into town and found out that we were smack in the middle of one of the deadliest natural disasters in history. But a mathematician might’ve figured out how that could have been at least partially avoided: he thinks he can build a device that stops tsunamis.
Over the course of the last two decades or so, somewhere around half-a-million people have died from tsunamis. As with earthquakes, researchers work constantly on prediction methods, but so far, none have proven effective. For now, all we can do is warn countries as soon as possible–but, as history has shown, that often doesn’t work very well.
Usama Kadri is an applied mathematician from Cardiff University. His proposal, recently published in Heliyon, is something out of a science-fiction movie. A series of devices along a coastline would fire acoustic-gravity waves into the oncoming tsunami, theoretically dissipating much of the wave’s energy. Sound like bullshit? Well, there’s some real hard science behind it, much of which is very confusing and looks like this:
As you can see, it all makes sense.
Acoustic-gravity waves are already created by tsunamis, and Kadri believes they’d also be the perfect detection system. “Unlike surface ocean waves, AGWs form with tsunamis and induce pressure disturbances not only near the surface but in the whole water column, reaching the seafloor where they leave measurable pressure signatures, which makes them perfect tsunami precursors,” he wrote. “In fact, with only two low-frequency bottom pressure sensors, one can identify the epicenter location, from arrival time delay, and the fact that the pressure decreases proportionally to the inverse square-root of the distance.”
According to Kadri, the anti-tsunami gun is a real possibility–albeit a difficult achievement. “In practice, generating the appropriate acoustic–gravity [waves] introduces serious challenges due to the high energy required for an effective interaction,” Kadri explained. “However, if the findings are extended to realistic tsunami properties, we might be able to mitigate tsunamis and so save lives.”
The mathematician believes that, if his devices were installed on Japan’s coastline in 2011, the tsunami could have been reduced by up to 30 percent, saving thousands of lives and decreasing the massive destruction. While it’s still purely theoretical, it’s an interesting peek at what the future of disaster management might hold.
To read Kadri’s full abstract, click here.
