Scientists solve 1840s space weather mystery
A Nature report from 1871 described a geomagnetic storm delaying a train in Exeter in October 1841, which would make it the earliest known example of space weather disrupting technology. But researchers found the South Devon Railway line didn't open until 1846, and strong geomagnetic activity actually occurred on October 18, 1848. They conclude the 1841 date was a typo and identify the anonymous author as electrical engineer Nathaniel John Holmes.
What this study shows is that society has been experiencing the effects of space weather on technology for almost as long as electrical technologies have existed.
- Jtsummers
khat's comment is dead, but replying to it here:
> It's very odd they would assume a typo in the writing but not an error in their calculations or possibly no correlation whatsoever.
They didn't assume a typo, they concluded that a typo makes the most sense if the story is true.
The facts:
- The original story (as published) claims the event occurred on 18 October 1841 on a line that didn't exist at that time (not until 1846).
- The original story was specific about the train (a 10:05 express train) and the month and day (18 October)
- On 18 October 1848 there was an express train with that time and there was a recorded geomagnetic storm
Under the assumption the story is true, given the details that do line up and the one detail that can't line up with anything, a typographical error where one number was changed makes a lot of sense.
EDIT: @khat, if you read this, it seems you've somehow become shadowbanned. Both your comment here and your earlier comment from today are [dead]. This means admin moderation or auto-moderation was involved, these weren't [flagged][dead] which would have indicated users flagged it to death. Nothing in either looks like a reason to get shadowbanned so you may want to reach out to the mods (there's a contact link at the bottom of most pages).
- mapmeld
Oh, interesting that we now have evidence of multiple geomagnetic storms in the 19th century. Alfred Russel Wallace (more famous for work on natural selection) has a journal entry about seeing the aurora from Waigeo - near Papua - in July of 1860, and when I looked it up that's almost a year after the Carrington Event.
> On the evening of our arrival at Muka I observed what appeared like a display of Aurora Borealis, though I could hardly believe that this was possible at a point a little south of the equator.
- pinkmuffinere
> Were a similarly intense geomagnetic storm to occur today, it would likely seriously damage the electrical power grid, causing widespread outages and blackouts, as well as disrupting satellite communications.
Is this really true? I’m suspicious for a few reasons:
1. If it were true, I expect it would be a national security concern, and quickly remedied
2. While there is a lot more dependence on electrical connections, there’s also many more sources of disturbance now. So I suspect some of the failure modes are tested by “normal” human activity
3. EMI is a known risk, in my previous job we actively tested and built for it. I suppose if the limits are inappropriately set , or if this sort of testing isn’t wide spread, it could still be an issue.
4. As long as there’s a neutral line, i think any common mode should be rejected, in which case this should be fine?
- fn-mote
This seems like exactly the kind of scientific discovery that an LLM would make.
I didn’t see any mention of one, but the work of connecting the different sources seems like an LLM strength.
- khat
It's very odd they would assume a typo in the writing but not an error in their calculations or possibly no correlation whatsoever.