A cascading failure is a failure in a system of interconnected parts in which the failure of a part can trigger the failure of successive parts. Such a failure may happen in many types of systems, including power transmission, computer networking, finance and bridges.
Cascading failures usually begin when one part of the system fails. When this happens, nearby nodes must then take up the slack for the failed component. This overloads these nodes, causing them to fail as well, prompting additional nodes to fail in a vicious cycle.
Read more about Cascading Failure: Cascading Failure in Power Transmission, Cascading Failure in Computer Networks, Infrastructures, Mechanical Structural Failure
Famous quotes containing the words cascading and/or failure:
“Have We not made the earth as a cradle and the mountains as pegs? And We created you in pairs, and We appointed your sleep for a rest; and We appointed night for a garment, and We appointed day for a livelihood. And We have built above you seven strong ones, and We appointed a blazing lamp and have sent down out of the rain-clouds water cascading that We may bring forth thereby grain and plants, and gardens luxuriant.”
—Qur’An. “The Tiding,” 78:6-16, trans. by Arthur J. Arberry (1955)
“Scientific method is the way to truth, but it affords, even in
principle, no unique definition of truth. Any so-called pragmatic
definition of truth is doomed to failure equally.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)