So, I was thinking... say I was a terrorist bent on striking down the infidels, how would I do it?

I'd have the resources to be able to wreak some decent havoc but can't actually engage American soil with said resources since the twin towers came down and everything went all pre-marshal law and stuff

What would I do? hmmm

I think that I would find an unprotected off shore cliff face or three that 'could' be havoc-ed with my resources and let the converging waves of the mega-tsunami I had created inundate about six miles of coastline to see just what kind of pressure that volume of water pushing and then pulling on the San Andreas fault-line would do and the destruction it could wreak.

I think we can all agree that this would be a bad thing, yes?

So, what to do? Can't protect every single cliff face in the south pacific from shenanigans but we might be able to disperse the effect of a tsunami altogether given a large enough budget.

Rows of perforated pipe stretching thousands of miles would parallel the coastline of [place-country-name-here]. Each section of pipe is equipped with enough compressed gas to equal the duration of the longest wavelength of tsunami yet recorded and when a tidal wave is detected, the system fills the water with bubbles before the wave reaches shore.
The physics of the wave amplification due to the elevation of the sea-bed would change entirely and the tsunami should... fizzle, (technical term, it will be on the test), and dissipate.
That's the way I see it going down in my head anyway. It should be pretty easy to test.

Crisis averted.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 14 2013

La Palma http://www.youtube....watch?v=YWtJ-DG3HuM
As mentioned in an annotation. [Vernon, Sep 15 2013]

//I was a terrorist bent on striking down the infidels,

Well, the really cheap way to avoid that, is to find out why they would want to, and work on that problem.
-- not_morrison_rm, Sep 14 2013


Cheaper maybe, but turning the tide of a mega-tsunami will be a far simpler task than turning the tide of humanity.

Until zealots stop passing their insanity down to children, those kids will never learn to play nice with others.

Until certain governments stop enabling and even encouraging this insanity, how can it ever change?
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 14 2013


{shrugs} not pointing any fingers. Letting by-gones be by-gones would need to be the first step.

I think Geddy Lee said it best;
"...and the men who hold high places must be the one's who start to mould a new reality closer to the heart."
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 14 2013


You might be interested to know that when the Indian Ocean tsunami happened in December 2004, Bangladesh was basically unaffected (one death of someone offshore in a rowboat, if I recall right).

The thing that protected Bangladesh was the offshore continental shelf. It extends from land so far that when the tsunami arrived, it "broke" before reaching land.

So an alternative to this Idea, truly half-baked, is to grind mountains and pour the debris into the oceans to build out the continental shelf of every relevant coastline (in the USA parts of its coast are already as safe as Bangladesh, I mean; other parts are not).
-- Vernon, Sep 14 2013


Me or him?

//pour the debris into the oceans to build out the continental shelf of every relevant coastline//

Wouldn't that massively damage the ecosystems of those coastlines?
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 14 2013


And if you strike oil?
-- popbottle, Sep 14 2013


[21 Quest] I swear to you on my eyesight I've never before heard of Patrick Robinson and the only military Morgan I know of is Captain...
Did they figure out how to dissipate the tidal wave in the novel? If so, how did they do it?

Why, if we struck oil we'd light it up of course.
That's just how we'd roll.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 14 2013


Cool. That makes two of us.
Would it work though? Would a mega-Tsunami fizzle if channelled through a wave-length wall of bubbles?

I've got to find out for sure before my neuro-cad program adopts it as a default setting and takes off on all sorts of unrealistic tangents.

Manual override becomes... problematic at that point.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 15 2013


// marshal law //

Sp. "martial law"

// Until zealots stop passing their insanity down to children, those kids will never learn to play nice with others. //

Spot on. Spare not even the children, lest the Evil persist ...
-- 8th of 7, Sep 15 2013


Won't work. I tried an empirical test in the bathtub replete with genuine 'sloshing action' and 'bubbles'. Floor still got wet. Before criticizing my methodology I can assure you that the bubbles were prodigious.
-- AusCan531, Sep 15 2013


Ah... I thought it was "Marshal" as in "Sheriff". I will leave it as posted as a reminder to myself never to forget the vast ineptitude of which I am capable.

//Spot on. Spare not even the children, lest the Evil persist ...//
...spake Spanck, the gay Vulcan?

Sorry, wrong thread...

That's a pretty cool simulation [Vernon]. I wish it showed how far inland the water eventually reached.

It will fizzle... oh yes, it will fizzle hard baby.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 15 2013



random, halfbakery