/sci/ - Science & Math

>>10009970
>>10009978
A story which I think signifies the importance of good stress testing and ad-hoc imprisonment is the story of Sir Douglas Mawson.
>The year is 1911-1913
>Mawson is an Australian with a scientific interest in Antartica
>Wanted to survey 2000 miles of unknown land
>Gathered money, a boat, and 31 men
>Extremely green crew; 1/3 of his men had never seen snow
>Hoped to be the first expedition to have radio contact with the outside world
>Docked at Commonwealth bay, set up a hut
>The windiest place in the WORLD: average wind velocity in May was 60 miles per hour
>Mawson splits his men into groups of three who would man-haul sledges around and collect data
>Mawson himself got the most difficult trek, and thus has dogs to help with the sledging
>The two other men in his trio are Xavier Mertz, a Swiss lawyer/ski jump champion and British Lieutenant Ninnis
>They set out on a 350 mile trip with 16 dogs and 1,720 lb of food & two sledges
>Ninnis carried most of the food and the tent supplies in one sledge, and kept up the rear of the group
>This way if Mawson, who carried the other sledge, falls into a crevasse the other two can still survive
>5 weeks of the trek pass
>Ninnis falls in a 150 foot crevasse
>They spend three hours shouting for him, but to no avail
>The only supplies left were some of the dogs, sleeping bags, and food for a week
>300 miles to get back
>six dogs left
>as each dog collapses, they shoot it, eat some, and feed the rest to the remaining dogs (all of the dog food was on Ninnis’s sledge)
>About 150 miles later, all of the dogs are gone
>Mertz starts to go crazy, swinging his arms and raving
>Dies during the night
>Mawson now continues on back towards the base camp, driven by the desire to see his fiancée
>”I have no hope of making it back alive” he says in his diary