A British Lord wanted to build the best airship in the world - and so he had two rival design teams battle it out to win the juicy government contract. Competition is supposed to bring the best out of people, but run in the wrong way it can cause people …
Giving an Oscar to the wrong film proved that some safety systems make mistakes even more likely.
Giving an Oscar to the wrong film proved that some safety systems make mistakes even more likely.
Galileo tried to teach us that adding more and more layers to a system intended to avert disaster often makes catastrophe all the more likely to happen. His basic lesson has been ignored in nuclear power plants, financial markets and at the Oscars... all resulting in chaos. Read more about …
Humans aren't as blindly obedient as we are made out to be... but we still fall too easily for convincing fraudsters.
Humans aren't as blindly obedient as we are made out to be... but we still fall too easily for convincing fraudsters.
One crisp morning in Berlin, in 1906, a small group of soldiers were led on an extraordinary heist by a man they believed to be a Captain. So how did an ageing nobody in a fake uniform trick them into aiding him in the crime of the century? Some say …
Why did an oil tanker captain steer his beloved ship towards a reef? It's a mistake many of us make.
Why did an oil tanker captain steer his beloved ship towards a reef? It's a mistake many of us make.
Torrey Canyon was one of the biggest and best ships in the world - but its captain and crew still needlessly steered it towards a deadly reef known as The Seven Stones. This course seemed like utter madness, but the thinking that resulted in such a risky manoeuvre is something …
Coming November 15 from Tim Harford and Pushkin Industries, Cautionary Tales relates a true story of a time when something did not go according to plan.
Coming November 15 from Tim Harford and Pushkin Industries, Cautionary Tales relates a true story of a time when something did not go according to plan.
Coming November 15 from Tim Harford and Pushkin Industries, Cautionary Tales relates a true story of a time when something did not go according to plan. Some of these true stories are tragic, some are comic, but like the great fables and parables, each of them has a moral. Equipped …