Dürrenmatt's Laws

(Designing Nuclear Plants according to Dürrenmatt's Laws)

J. W. Richter

„Only in the madhouse we will be allowed to think.

In freedom our thoughts will be considered as explosives.“

The Fundamental Rules in designing-methods

Is it really true the worst possible sudden turn in a design cannot be foreseen? Did the Swiss author
Friedrich Dürrenmatt really predict the sudden turns at the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear plants
in his satirical drama The Physicists (German “Die Physiker”, 1962), which deals with issues
concerning science and its responsibility for dramatic and even dangerous changes to our world.
The following lines from The Physicists document the basic rules for scientific design:
1. „I do not refer to a thesis, but to a story.
2. If we refer to a story, we will have to follow the thoughts up to the end.
3. A story is terminated after it has reached the worst possible sudden turn.
4. A worst possible sudden turn cannot be foreseen. It will happen all of a sudden.“1

If the worst possible sudden turn cannot be foreseen the design cannot be calculated and no
insurance company will accepts the risks to insure the system. Strictly spoken the design is unsafe
as it cannot be considered as controllable. As soon as the sudden turn strikes the system will be
ruined and turns into a disaster.
This is exactly what happened in Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Dürrenmatt's Physicists and maybe some “Theses for a Nuclear Era” (1959) by Günther Anders2
maybe considered as basic ideas to Ethics in Science, but are we we allowed to consider
Dürrenmatt's Laws as the Fundamental Rules in designing-methods?

1 The first four of 21 notes to the comedy The Physicists (1961)

2 born Günther Stern, 1902-1992, a Jewish philosopher and journalist who developed a philosophical anthropology for
the age of technology, focusing on such themes as the effects of mass media on our emotional and ethical existence, the
nuclear threat, the Shoah and the question of being a philosopher
Definitions
The Design Basis Accident (DBA)
A worst possible sudden turn is a postulated accident that a system (often a nuclear plant) must be
designed and built to withstand without loss to the systems, structures, and components necessary to
assure public health and safety.
Often mastering a DBA requires a redundancy concept, which needs to be approved by an
independent approval commission such as the Japan Nuclear Safety Commission .
However the most important tool to master the DBA is not redundancy, but the imagination and
fantasy of the designers and the approval commission.

Beyond design basis accidents

We will need a model to master a DBA. Circumstances like the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and
tsunami were considered unlikely or impossible, and so the resulting Fukushima I nuclear accidents
are described using this terminology as "beyond design basis accidents" or "non-design-basis
accidents".
All design methods to meet "non-design-basis accidents" need to be approved by the approval
commission. In an ideally designed system the approval commission is the last unit, which may be
able to save us from catastrophes by foresight, control and prevention.

Risks
Each Design Basis Accident may be characterized by two numbers representing
(1) the damage by the event and
(2) the probability of the event
A multiplication of damage x probability represents the event's risk, which may be used as a
parameter in insurance calculations.

Logical derivations (to be discussed)

Insurances
According to Dürrenmatt a worst possible sudden turn cannot be foreseen cannot be calculated and
cannot be insured.
If a government takes care of insurances they must be considered as incalculable or too big risks for
regular insurance companies.
Only insurable risks should be allowed in planned projects.
Strictly spoken the ability to calculate a regular insurance provides us with a rough estimate for the
project's risk. The project's risk may be acceptable if insurance is possible, but disapproval should
be considered if the insurance has been denied.
Mastering a worst possible sudden turn
A worst possible sudden turn will be controlled by chance and may only be mastered by chance. If
the worst possible sudden turn cannot be foreseen the system cannot be controlled.

Examples
Some examples may illustrate the identification of worst possible sudden turns after they occurred.
The catastrophic designs are to be considered as “unterminated stories”, in which tsunamis and the
earthquake levels simply have been ignored. Redundancy in electric generators and pumps have
been ignored. Maintenance and warnings have been neglected for years. That's why a worst
possible sudden turn turned into a catastrophe and terminate the story.

The Unability to Foresee

Friedrich Dürrenmatt is right. Acceptable ethics for system designs are ruled by the first four points
of The Physicists. Only insurable designs should be considered as safe systems at all. The not
insurable designs should be reconsidered and redesigned as long as they reach acceptability to be
insured. ..

The design method as a Design Basis Accident (DBA)

Although a correct design process should be able to avoid Design Basis Accidents they seem to be
happening rather often. We will list a few of the worst possible sudden turns, that have been
identified in the Fukushima I plant. Most of the design- and management problems seem to have
been caused by the lack of imagination in the brains of the managers, designers and the approval
commission.
The Fukushima designs3

Design- and management problems

The list of design- and management problems at the Fukushima I facility is impressive. The designs
do not seem to meet Dürrenmatt's law of a terminated story. Insurance has been provided by the
government, which cannot be considered as an experienced and qualified insurance provider.
Most of these problems reveal an embarrassing lack of fantasy in imagining future events.
• “Shiro Ogura, an engineer involved in the design of the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi
plant (which is built on two nearby sites, one with four reactors and the other with two), said
that his bosses had told him that earthquakes of magnitude 8 or more could never happen,
and so there had been no planning for such contingencies. Neither had the company factored
tsunamis into the design of nuclear power plants, he said4.“
• At Fukushima I the emergency power generators end cooling pumps had been installed at
the lower floor level of the generators' facility at the seaside of the reactor's building, where
they had been destroyed by the tsunami.
• Fukushima I has been considered as „a teaching prototype system for Toshiba and Hitachi,
in order to learn General Electrics' nuclear designs by trial and error.
• 2002 it had been reported, that representatives for 16 years have been falsifying reports for
repairs for the Tepco nuclear facilities. Several hundred incidents had been skipped from the
reports.
• 1990 the NRC warned for failing power and cooling systems by earthquakes. Tepco ignored
these warnings.
• At the 1st of March NISA reported alarming warnings in inspections and maintenance. In
Fukushima I 33 units and equipment such as cooling pumps, diesel generators and control
vents had not been checked intensively.
• The cooling basin at Fukushima's Block #4 caused a mayor explosion because the
management could not imagine failures of the cooling system, resulting in hydrogen
explosions in a building with an empty containment vessel. The basin of this reactor
contained 1331 fuel rods, which had been stored for cooling. At Fukushima a large number
of old fuel rods had been stored for long-term storage.
Not failing technology, but failing fantasy to imagine the failures in cooling systems did lead to the
catastrophe.

3 Details have been documented in German Wikipedia: Konstruktionsmängel des Kernkraftwerk Fukushima Nr. 1
4 Source-link
In the end, people will understand.

A worst possible sudden turn cannot be foreseen.

It will happen all of a sudden.“5

The village was spared from the devastation brought to other coastal communities following
the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami thanks to a 15.5-meter (51 ft) floodgate that protected
the town.
The floodgate was built between 1967 and 1984 at a cost of ¥3.56 billion (approximately
US$30 million in 2011) under the administration of mayor Kotaku Wamura. Derided as a
waste of public funds, the floodgate at the 11 th of March 2011 protected the village and the
inner cove from the worst of the tsunami waves6.
At his retirement 1987 mayor Wamura stood before village employees to bid farewell:
"Even if you encounter opposition, have conviction and finish what you start. In the end,
people will understand."

According to Dürrenmatts theses mayor Wamura managed to read the tsunami's historical story till
the bitter end. He accurately studied the archives and road-marks for evidence of the highest
tsunamis and for his town he managed to order an adequate gigantic 15,5 meters tall seawall to
protect the village against the flood.
In the sense of Dürrenmatt's Laws he has been considered as a “fool”, who nullified public
warnings for extensive costs, but completed the floodgate including the high protection wall. He
retired 1987 and died 1997 at the age of 88 years. Since the tsunami Fudai's residents are visiting
his grave to honor his decisions.
In contrast other mayors of surrounding towns had been praised for erecting much cheaper
protection walls. The town of Taro had chosen for a 10-meter-tall protective seawall spanning 1.6
miles (2.5 kilometers) across a bay, but the wall easily has been overcome by the tsunami at the 11 th
of March 2011.
It had been the Swiss author Friedrich Dürrenmatt, who in The Physicists clearly describes the
pathological contradictions in human behavior. Dürrenmatt's favorite style has been based on
alienation, in which he displays the “normal” (in his case an irresponsible) Physicist as a paranoid
man and the “foolish, abnormal” patients as responsible citizens.
According to Dürrenmatt modern society in a paradox consists of a great number of irresponsible
citizens and only a few responsible citizens, which may only be understood in a parody.
In modern world the blame for catastrophes usually will be hushed up by transposing responsibility
to other originators or alien origins such as Acts of God, etc. Identifying the pathological
irresponsibility in our societies Dürrenmatt saw this behavior may only be revealed successfully by
describing it in a grotesque.
The list of laws at the Physicists' appendix (1962) already has been identified as a guideline to
modern engineering for dangerous technological methods, respectively facilities (such as gen-
technology, chemical plants and nuclear reactors)7.

5 The first four of 21 notes to the comedy The Physicists (1961)

6 Info from Wikipedia's Fudai ( 普 代 村 Fudai-mura) and Hosaka, Tomoko A. (13 May 2011). . Seattle Post-
Intelligencer. AP. Retrieved 13 May 2011.
7 Dürrenmatt's Laws (Designing Nuclear Plants according to Dürrenmatt's Laws)
Dürrenmatt's Laws however cannot be considered as a proof for Dürrenmatt's prophetic insight in
engineering's failures unless we may identify a Japanese leader who initially had been considered
as a fool and later became a heroic savior of his home town. This hero has been identified as Fudai's
mayor Kotaku Wamura, who convinced his fellow citizens to build a 15,5 m tall seawall and saved
the town from destruction in a recent tsunami.
In the seventies the mayor gravely had been accused for irresponsible financial management. In
contrast the neighboring town Taro decided to choose for a much cheaper 10-meter-tall protective
seawall, which 2011 failed to withstand the tsunami.
Mayor Kotaku Wamura had been elected in office from shortly after WW II up till 1987. He
accurately studied the district's archives and road-marks for evidence of the highest tsunamis and
decided his town needed a gigantic 15,5 meters tall seawall to protect the village against the flood.
At his retirement, mayor Wamura stood before village employees to bid farewell:
"Even if you encounter opposition, have conviction and finish what you start.
In the end, people will understand."
This prophetic utterance definitely identifies Wamura's responsibility in Dürrenmatt's sense: in his
studies he did read the story down to the bitter end. In Dürrenmatt's sense Fudai's citizens
considered their mayor as a “fool”, who withstood the public opinion consequently and acted
according to his responsibility. In contrast the mayors of neighboring counties had been admired for
their cheaper solutions, which failed to resist the flood's powers.
Of course Dürrenmatt, who died 1990, might have written a new screenplay encapsulating the
tragedies of the Fukushima- and Fudai-events to illustrate the irrational behavior of modern man.
Unfortunately I feel unable to dramatize these tragedies and I can only express the admiration for
Dürrenmatt's insight respectively the foresight of mayor Kotaku Wamura, who in the seventies may
have feared his deselection, abdication – or, in one of Dürrenmatt's grotesques: his admittance into
an asylum...
Unfortunately Kotaku Wamura has only be made responsible for the tiny fisher-town Fudai and not
for the Fukushima-district, which definitely would have needed a similar hero, who would have
been able to read a story to the bitter end.
But there is one thing the Japanese Fishermen must have learned from Kotaku Wamura: the
relevance of foresight in leadership.
A Hippocratic Oath for Engineering and Science8
If ever we are allowed to consider the idea of a functioning Hippocratic Oath for Engineering and
Science it would at least include one of the promises derived from Dürrenmatt's Laws:
“I promise to at least try to imagine worst possible sudden turn before I start designing a
new project.”
One of the first ideas of a Hippocratic Oath for scientists was suggested by Sir Joseph Rotblat in his
acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995:

"The time has come to formulate guidelines for the ethical conduct of scientists, perhaps in
the form of a voluntary Hippocratic Oath”
I remember to have published a Hippocratic Oath for Engineers and Scientists in 1994 in a booklet
The Hippocratic Oath Revisited9, which of course has been too early and probably missed the
impact of Dürrenmatt's convincing and dramatic comedies.
Some institutes are now beginning to take the proposals seriously and in June 2008, graduating
students at the University of Toronto, Canada, pledged to honor a scientific oath. This is the first
well-documented case of scientists within the research community employing an oath-declared
ethical code.
"I have entered the serious pursuit of new knowledge as a member of the community of
graduate students at the University of Toronto. I declare the following:

• Pride: I solemnly declare my pride in belonging to the international community

of research scholars.

• Integrity: I promise never to allow financial gain, competitiveness, or ambition

cloud my judgment in the conduct of ethical research and scholarship.

• Pursuit: I will pursue knowledge and create knowledge for the greater good, but
never to the detriment of colleagues, supervisors, research subjects or the
international community of scholars of which I am now a member.

By pronouncing this Graduate Student Oath, I affirm my commitment to professional

conduct and to abide by the principles of ethical conduct and research policies as set out
by the University of Toronto."

It was published in international media that the students appeared to take the oath very seriously and
it is hoped that further universities and institutes will begin to encourage their students to undertake
a scientific oath.

8 Info from: Hippocratic Oath for Engineering and Science

9The Hippocratic Oath Revisited by J. W. Richter (Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1858212012)
Summary
Dürrenmatt's The Physicists (1961) and maybe some “Theses for a Nuclear Era” (1959) by Günther
Anders10 should be considered as a basic guide for all human activity.
The main risk in calculating the worst possible sudden turns is not the tsunamis' height or the
earthquakes' power, but the failing imagination of the management and the approval commission.
The existence of foreseeing leaders, who feel enabled to think a story up to the bitter end, may be
illustrated by the 16 meters-tall seawall, which has been built 1967-1984 for the fisher town Fudai
and withstood the tsunami at the 11th of March 2011.
Failing imagination prevented the foreseeability of the well-known worst-case events and ruined the
uncontrollable systems at Fukushima I. Whoever ignores Dürrenmatt's Laws must be considered as
a part of the approaching unseen worst possible sudden turn himself.
If ever we are allowed to consider the idea of a functioning Hippocratic Oath for Engineering and
Science it would at least include one of the promises derived from Dürrenmatt's Laws:
“I promise to at least try to imagine the worst possible sudden turn before I start designing a
new project.”

Notes
This essay will be included as a new chapter in Castles of Grief (Chapter 1-22)
To illustrate the dominance of technological disasters in the northern hemisphere the Fukushima-
and Fudai-locations have been marked a the Google Map Castra Doloris and other Mausoleums of
the Mind , although the Fukushima tragedy may only be documented after the story has terminated
the worst possible sudden turn.

10 born Günther Stern, 1902-1992, a Jewish philosopher and journalist who developed a philosophical anthropology
for the age of technology, focusing on such themes as the effects of mass media on our emotional and ethical existence,
the nuclear threat, the Shoah and the question of being a philosopher