Why are shinkansen noses so weird looking, Daddy?

[bikkuri bahn]

Well, son, it's all about "biomimicry":

 

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/08098010-e386-11de-9f4f-00144feab49a.html

 

*I assume the type they are referring to is the 700 series?

[CaptOblivious]

Very interesting. I had thought the 700-series nose had been designed by a genetic algorithm (an AI technique for optimization with which I have more than a passing familiarity).

[scott]

The style is deliberate. Engineers at JR West, a railway, were looking to eliminate the sonic booms that the trains created when they barreled through tunnels, violently compressing the air inside as they went. They found a solution in the kingfisher, a marine bird whose long, flattish bill produces very little splash when the animal dives into the water for prey.

 

I hate to say this about one of my favorite birds, but I wonder if they didn't mean JR East and the E5.

[grumbeast]

Very interesting. I had thought the 700-series nose had been designed by a genetic algorithm (an AI technique for optimization with which I have more than a passing familiarity).

 

You too :)    My Grad work was in AI, and I used to teach a course on genetic algorithms although my speciality was Machine Learning.. whats the odds that two people on such a specific forum with a world-wide reach would both be familiar with GAs?  next thing you'll tell me is that you also like programming in LISP.. (that (would be (too much)))

 

Graham

[CaptOblivious]

Very interesting. I had thought the 700-series nose had been designed by a genetic algorithm (an AI technique for optimization with which I have more than a passing familiarity).

 

You too :)    My Grad work was in AI, and I used to teach a course on genetic algorithms although my speciality was Machine Learning.. whats the odds that two people on such a specific forum with a world-wide reach would both be familiar with GAs?  next thing you'll tell me is that you also like programming in LISP.. (that (would be (too much)))

 

Graham

 

You are in luck: I hate LISP. I'm a Python person. Also, I haven't done anything in machine learning in about 6 or 8 years, as I've switched to philosophy ;D This was pretty much the last thing I did publicly before leaving machine learning.

 

Annoyingly, while searching for evidence that GAs were used for shinkansen design this thread is the second google result for "shinkansen genetic algorithm". Not very helpful! But this JR Central press release was helpful: The N700 was designed with a GA! http://english.jr-central.co.jp/news/n20040616/index.html

 

The style is deliberate. Engineers at JR West, a railway, were looking to eliminate the sonic booms that the trains created when they barreled through tunnels, violently compressing the air inside as they went. They found a solution in the kingfisher, a marine bird whose long, flattish bill produces very little splash when the animal dives into the water for prey.

 

I hate to say this about one of my favorite birds, but I wonder if they didn't mean JR East and the E5.

 

You might be right about the kingfisher...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingfisher The images there sure look a lot more like the final E5 nose design than the 700 series...

[scott]

I never thought being a bird geek would be useful in being a train geek. 

[disturbman]

I think I know something else that looks exactly like the Kingfisher. I don't remember what et but it will eventually come back to me. Maybe the famous X-29.