Megadisasters: The Science of Predicting the Next Catastrophe

by Florin Diacu

The history and science behind efforts to predict major disasters, from tsunamis to stock market crashes

Can we predict cataclysmic disasters such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or stock market crashes? The Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 claimed more than 200,000 lives. Hurricane Katrina killed over 1,800 people and devastated the city of New Orleans. The recent global financial crisis has cost corporations and ordinary people around the world billions of dollars. Megadisasters is a book that asks why catastrophes such as these catch us by surprise, and reveals the history and groundbreaking science behind efforts to forecast major disasters and minimize their destruction.

Each chapter of this exciting and eye-opening book explores a particular type of cataclysmic event and the research surrounding it, including earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, rapid climate change, collisions with asteroids or comets, pandemics, and financial crashes. Florin Diacu tells the harrowing true stories of people impacted by these terrible events, and of the scientists racing against time to predict when the next big disaster will strike. He describes the mathematical models that are so critical to understanding the laws of nature and foretelling potentially lethal phenomena, the history of modeling and its prospects for success in the future, and the enormous challenges to scientific prediction posed by the chaos phenomenon, which is the high instability that underlies many processes around us.

Yielding new insights into the perils that can touch every one of us, Megadisasters shows how the science of predicting disasters holds the promise of a safer and brighter tomorrow.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science

240 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2009

Reviews

[Anton Manyak · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting information, but not very in-depth

[Dee Eisel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was more of an overview of a spectrum of disasters that we can "look forward" to experiencing. It bumped itself up from two stars to three by including a chapter on economic collapse, which most books don't do, but if you're only into things that the planet Earth or its nearby neighbors can do to us, you might be better off skipping in favor of Phil Plait's Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End... or similar works.

The most interesting aspect of the book for me was that it is written by a mathematician. As a result, he's big into looking at odds and numbers. He loves graphs and charts over images of the disasters themselves. It's a neat perspective, and I regret that it's such a surface view of each kind of disaster.

I didn't learn anything new over most of this book. For someone new to the genre, or who is looking for a bibliography to explore - and the bibliograpy is very nice! - it might be a good starter. If you're looking for more than that, look elsewhere.

[William Blair · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a very disappointing book. It's really ten or a dozen, possibly 20 or so, books all in one, each one far too short to be worthwhile. The author goes thru a litany of different types of disasters, but says far too little about each one.

Maybe he's thinking that this book will catch the attention of some documentary movie producer at the History Channel or the Science Channel. Don't waste your time with this book. Although easy to read, there's far too little meat to waste your time trudging thru 195 pages.

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book provided an interesting overview of how math relates to many scientific fields that use models for description, prediction and forecasting. This book is excellent because it explains many of the whys for many situations. It also, should interest kids and students just learning about math models.