Amplifiers

Introduction

During a family trip to Sweden a few years ago, I came across the historical Vasa. The Swedish warship from the 1600s stands as an enormous symbol of leadership and followership gone awry. Gustav II Adolf was the King of Sweden between 1611 and 1632. He commissioned the construction of four ships to support his war effort, with one being the most powerful warship in the Baltic. The ship was doomed from the design. The hubris of the king and the enormity of the ship were too much for the ship's lead designer, Henrik Hybertsson. Although he was an experienced ship designer, the size and scale were beyond Hybertsson’s experience. However, he designed what the king wanted.

Although it was common for warships in the period to be somewhat top heavy, the experts at the shipyard were convinced that there was too much height and weight above the waterline and far too little ballast to support the buoyancy of the ship. Yet construction continued. The workers and their supervisors at the shipyard were not devoid of national pride, nor did they intend to put an unseaworthy vessel into war. They simply did not have the courage to tell the king, their titled executive or boss, that his vision was flawed.

Prior to the maiden voyage, the ship's captain had thirty men run across the deck to cause it to sway to demonstrate to the vice admiral that the ship was unsafe. After three passes, the captain stopped the demonstration for fear of the ship sinking. Yet even with this knowledge, ...