h a l f b a k e r y"Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
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Somehow we trick a large building company into giving us an estimate for the cost of building a copy of the great pyramid of giza in Las Vegas.
It must be a detailed description of how they plan to do it with cost per item.
Just to compare this with the theories we have about how the pyramid was
built.
If the quote is of good quality this might lead to some interesting new insight or discussion at least.
Replica Great Monuments
http://www.dailymai...hal-stay-night.html
[bs0u0155, Sep 30 2014]
Geopolymer Pyramids
http://www.geopolym...rchaeology/pyramids
The theory that the pyramids were build with artrificial geopolymer stones. [scad mientist, Sep 30 2014]
The simple way
https://www.youtube...watch?v=RRf7BXIGKpg
[pashute, Sep 30 2014]
He did it hiiiiis way
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_Castle
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 30 2014]
JUNE 1999 CIVIL ENGINEERING MAGAZINE
http://www.abovetop...5573/pg2#pid2657889
Analysis by construction management firm Daniel, Mann, Johnson, & Mendenhall (DMJM) [the porpoise, Sep 30 2014]
Copper mirrors
http://www.armlaser...o2-laser-p-339.html
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Oct 03 2014]
Focus.
https://www.youtube...watch?v=z0_nuvPKIi8
1:20 mark [2 fries shy of a happy meal, Oct 04 2014]
[link]
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"Wheatsheaf, feather, feather, wiggly line, big eye, ibis, boat,
man with staff, big eye, cow, jackal with wheelbarrow …" |
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This is, if I may be permitted to say so, brilliant. |
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I don't think you'd need to trick the company (or
could). Just ask two big companies to quote and
make it into a television program. Each company
would have to get to grips with what's known about
the Giza pyramid, and then find the most effective
way to reproduce it using modern equipment (but
traditional materials). Winner is the company with
the lowest-cost workable plan. |
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I think it would be brilliant. You could have a whole
TV series - the pyramids, Stonehenge... |
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[To paraphrase an old joke "So, you want a regular building
but you want no doors, no windows, no plumbing, no electrics
and no drainage? Normally I'd do it for $250M, but with all
those extra requirements..."] |
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Somehow we trick = tv show |
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I knew someone would think of something. |
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I'd also like to see one of those shows on the golden gate bridge. Cost comparison, efficiency comparison, metalurgy comparison.
I don't suppose any of the people involved are still alive but we could interview a grandchild for the human interest angle. |
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This could be a great project for students of architecture. |
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Naturally there would be an accompanying website where people could join in polite discourse. |
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One of the bids would have to include use of Manuel labor.
And we could have a referendum on whose tomb it becomes. |
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While we're at it, can we get a replica of the Eiffel
Tower? |
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We've already got one. We put it in Blackpool where
it won't bother people. |
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I'm not sure I get the point? A 70 ton tower crane, a
very large order of stone from a quarry, and you're
done in about 6 months with maybe a few dozen
people involved. |
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Unless you're specifically asking for it to be done
without modern equipment, in which case, good
luck finding a company to quote it. |
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Pity Manuel. He always seems to get stuck with
the hardest jobs. |
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No it IS about doing it with modern equipment.
I think meche is not seeing all the complications. |
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To illustrate: 2.5 million stone blocks in six months is one block every 7 seconds. I don't see us doing it in under ten years. |
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//While we're at it, can we get a replica of the Eiffel
Tower// |
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Check out Dubailand <link> my brother is/was peripherally
involved with it. The Eiffel Tower was planned to be 1.1:1.
As in slightly bigger than the original. Apparently it's pretty
easy to build such a structure nowadays, the difficulty
comes in getting the rivets to look right, and modern high
grade steel would look a little thin. Sorry for linking to the
Daily Mail btw. |
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//I don't think you'd need to trick the company// |
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//(reality show concept)// |
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Was just going to type both of those ideas myself. The company would get great publicity and it would top the charts of reality shows if somebody actually managed to fund it somehow. |
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What would the tourist income be for a desert community that had an exact copy of the great pyramid made out of the same materials? Enough to justify the expense of building it? How much would it cost? How long to get return on the investment? These are all pretty interesting questions that a reality show could look into. |
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Again, for the construction company that won the contract, you think their name would be on the map much? "Remulac Construction. Can we build that? Yea, we can build that." (tm) Talk about flipping the bird to ancient construction techniques. An insult from across the ages. |
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//To illustrate: 2.5 million stone blocks in six months is
one
block every 7 seconds. I don't see us doing it in under ten
years.// |
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So maybe you need 4 tower cranes and a rail spur. |
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No mortar. No delay after setting. I may have been
exaggerating at 6 months, but it's simply not a huge or
complex deal. And I bet you could manage one block
placement every 30 seconds. |
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And as a reality show it would be incredibly boring. Pick
stone block off truck or rail car. Swing over to the
pyramid. Place, spending a bit of time making sure of the
placement. |
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//would top the charts of reality shows // |
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Nah. The more a reality show is interesting to.... er..
people like us.. i.e. it has some engineering in it, the
worse it does. I found the special edition of Scrapheap
Challenge, where they made v.early British, French and
American aircraft using period tools, absolutely
fascinating. Care to guess how that did in the ratings vs
the series of Big Brother in the same year? Let alone the
global syndication. For another example.. look at "The
Colony" build a radio from scratch? Get cancelled at
season 2. Have people engaged in meaningless drama like
socially mobile chimps, er... I mean human interest....
get global syndication and bajillions of viewers. |
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Excuse me while I go and have a serious think about this
whole civilization thing. |
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Well, Mythbusters is a hit. |
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But then again so is "Here Comes Honey BooBoo" which, correct me if I'm wrong, is featured on the Learning Channel. |
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//I may have been exaggerating at 6 months// |
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Poured concrete over rebar would be WAY faster. Stronger
too. Shame it would be a little inauthentic. Maybe the losing
contractor gets to do it the modern way? |
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Somewhere in the television wasteland I saw a piece some years ago where a team went to Egypt, hired street labor and built a scale protoype about 12 feet tall using 2' cube rocks. Just rope, logs, levers, etc. They really got into it and the technical arguments, labor arrangements, et all were pretty entertaining. |
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// Poured concrete over rebar would be WAY faster.
Stronger too. Shame it would be a little inauthentic.
// |
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Well, depending who you ask, it may be more
authentic than placing stone blocks. See link on
Geopolymer Pyramids |
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Would this building need to be the same materials as the pyramid? Or just the same size and shape? All that cut stone will be expensive. |
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I was impressed on visiting one of those cathedrals in England (they have loads!) that people were working on it. Fixing stuff up, buffing the gargoyles etc. It makes sense - the place has been in constant use. Not sure about the pyramids but lots of people count on the tourist dollars their ruins bring in, and so are motivated to not have them get ruined beyond recognition. So there must be a body of knowledge as regards working with antique structures. |
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//Somewhere in the television wasteland I saw a piece some years ago where a team went to Egypt, hired street labor and built a scale protoype about 12 feet tall using 2' cube rocks.// |
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That rings a bell. Was there an English or American engineer working with an Egyptian engineer arguing back and forth about how to best do it? |
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It'd be easier to just make this a test for promotion within a
company like Bechtel. Kind of like a thesis for PhD's, but for
mid-level project managers seeking to climb the corp's
ladder. |
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No bidder would take it seriously. Yes, Vegas is insane, but
for that construction cost, you'd need a bit more occupancy
than just those tiny few tunnels. |
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So, it must be understood by all to be an academic or
entertainment exercise. And, sorry, but the audience for
reality TV likes drama queens & oafs. It doesn't like
calculations and engineering as much. |
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If you want to see the results, ask Bechtel to
publicize/blog/video the results of each year's internal
promotion challenge, and they'd pick a new monument each
year. |
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While everybody (including myself) who hasn't seen one imagines pyramid blocks as being rather large (like 8x8x16' or something), most are less than a cubic metre. With everything set up, you could probably do construction in a year or so, even that "6 months" isn't totally unreasonable, given enough cranes. I think the hard part (timewise) would be getting that many blocks cut from quarries. |
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//I think the hard part (timewise) would be getting that many blocks cut from quarries.// |
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I remember seeing a program where they said that the workment got them out by *wearing away the surrounding stone* by bashing it with a smaller rock. So each one took months and months.
I still don't quite believe it. |
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I've never seen an adequate explanation of how the multitude
of workers were kept fed during construction. Seems like a
huge fleet of roach coaches would be needed. |
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Quick, someone channel Edward Leedskalnin! |
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//they said that the workment got them out by
*wearing away the surrounding stone* by bashing it
with a smaller rock.// |
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One method (not sure if it was used for the pyramids)
was to drill a line of holes using a hammer and chisel,
then hammer dry wooden pegs into the holes. The
pegs were then soaked in water, causing them to
expand and splitting the rock. |
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Given that everyone is expressing awe at human technological ingenuity on globally networked electronic devices I'm going to go against the grain and say the pyramids aren't really that impressive at all. After all what are they supposed to be, a simulacra of a mountain, pile of rocks that already exists to no purposeful end? Certainly I've seen the Rocky Mountains (many are pyramidal shaped) and they do inspire awe, but I'm not going to confuse that awe with technological awe. In fact, if the purpose of the pyramids were actually to cause people to be struck dumb with awe, then I'm very much against this kind of speculation. I'll even go way overboard and say that this was early industrial psychology, which I oppose as an unindustrious psychologicaly abnormal person. To reinforce this claim I'll direct your attention to standard Discovery Channel programming that combines work ethic TV shows, and feats of engineering shows that correspond to the regime that I refer. |
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[rcarty]: Yep. When people say, "OMG! ALIENS?! How can
South America & Africa have ancient cultures that built
similar (pyramid) structures?" I think: Well, the most
stable structure is a pile. |
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Build a tall tower? In a few years, after war, fire, you have
a pile. Straighten it a bit to the sun lines, & it's a nice
pyramid. |
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Want to impress the tribe with your EVEN BIGGER pyramid?
Just add a layer to the existing pile/pyramid. |
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Want to actually put anything in it? Well, that's just like
mining tunnels. Nothing fancy or structural besides a few
holes & walls. |
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Want to get it hollow like the Vegas Luxor? Nope. That's far
beyond the ancients. |
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It looks like the "pounding with other rocks" thing was pretty
much limited to the few granite blocks in the pyramids. |
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The main construction of limestone was worked with copper
tools. Chisels, saws, etc. The evidence is that they work
fine as long as you have a set or two out being sharpened
while you're working with the other one. |
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Sounds like modern machine shop tool room practices. |
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//Want to get it hollow like the Vegas Luxor? Nope. That's far beyond the ancients// Beyond the moderns too, I imagine. A cubic metre of granite is a tad on the heavy side. Trying to make a hollow pyramid, even with supporting columns, out of granite blocks would be a difficult task. |
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This has been done [link], they just didn't stage it as a quote. |
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An improvement would be to put it out for tender and invite multiple companies to compete for the "work". You'll get different approaches and perhaps competition will elicit original ideas. The prize will be the publicity for those with the better ideas and lowest quotes. |
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//say the pyramids aren't really that impressive at all. |
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Agreed, look pretty from a distance, but then no idea of scale, close up it's just like standing next to a wall, can't even tell if it's vertical or at an angle. |
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////they said that the workment got them out by *wearing away the surrounding stone* by bashing it with a smaller rock.//// |
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Absolutely - but having watched pashute's link ("The simple way" - strange video, has a strange vaguely racist start and end... skip to 2 mins 20 secs where it seems to cut to a documentary) it's stated there, with evidence. And the way it's described, that method might have been used only for large decorative granite menhirs (um, obilisks, whatever), not for every block. |
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Would you settle for a giant inflatable pyramid? |
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Obviously my previous comment wasn't to disparage an ancient civilization, or a current people's pride in it even though the Arab expansion happened way less than 5000 years ago, but at the same time contemporary industrial achievement is actually a contested quality of cultural superiority or superiority obsessed cultures. For example the enemies of the USA don't acknowledge the technological innovations of the 21st century that largely originated there as the hallmarks of a great civilization. Indeed, in a less favorable appraisal it can be said these developments are the ends of a shared set of values that embody and justify those values through 'undeniability' or truth-power. Much in the same way a North American Indian can point to environmental crisis to justify their set of values that didn't necessitate complete and militantly ordered social organization around the values of technological development reflected in its most naive form as mandatory education and disciplinary systems. Of course the truth-power conflict is ongoing but the undeniability of the the world at the level of materiality produces inherent arguments on a differential continuum of interpretation of the technological object. Basically that's how I read Guy Debord who hypersignified a form of capital with Marxist critiques in his many theses. |
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And we haven't mastered paragraph breaks either. |
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Where would the most masterful break have been placed? |
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Between the paragraphs, obviously. |
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Much in the same way isn't the start of a new paragraph it's reinforcing a point by using a comparison which is really a subthesis and not deserving of an independent thesis. That Debord wrote society of the spectacle as a set of theses rather than as paragraphs is that the object that it refers produces the proof of each thesis, the theses require no internal textual justification. The role of the interpretant is to act as a spectator at the same spectacle ' the object' that the theses relate. |
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Yeah, but paragraph breaks are good. |
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////they said that the workmen got them out by *wearing away the surrounding stone* by bashing it with a smaller rock.//// |
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That was my thought too
Here's a bit of a stretch; |
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Would it have been possible, using polished copper parabolic mirrors, to focus sunlight enough to cause the individual substances comprising granite to burst free of their surrounding substances in sequence as this focal point of light changed positions?
On a track system this could act almost like a primitive laser during the day for final shaping, (and did they have glass lenses back then?)
Also, did the temperatures at night never drop below freezing at certain times of the year in ancient Egypt? If so, then quarrying would have been carried out drilling holes, then filling them with water and capping them. |
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Supports could keep a cliff face from toppling and allow individual already squared blocks of incredible size to be lowered for transport.
The one's that didn't break while lowering would be given to the Artisan guild to be turned into something pretty. |
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Can you imagine what those pyramids must have looked like all polished up and gleaming? |
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If it was up to me, the inflatable pyramid would be lighter
than air, run on hot vapor warmed by concentrated sun
light. |
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Slaves and small rocks are both considerably cheaper than copper. |
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//That Debord wrote society of the spectacle |
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// did the temperatures at night never drop below freezing at certain times of the year in ancient Egypt? |
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Erm you should be able to do that now, but not in the winter as it gets a bit cloudy, which would prevent IR being emitted into space |
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[rcarty], is there a 'For Dummies' guide to reading what you write? |
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//Would it have been possible, using polished copper parabolic mirrors, to focus sunlight enough to cause the individual substances comprising granite to burst free of their surrounding substances in sequence as this focal point of light changed positions?// |
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// I'd also like to see one of those shows on the golden
gate bridge. Cost comparison, efficiency comparison,
metalurgy comparison. // |
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I've skipped most of the annos, so forgive me if somebody's
mentioned this, but if 'we' start publishing metallurgy
studies on old structures like the Golden Gate Bridge
people will go apeshit. The USA's artery infrastructure is in
critical disrepair, and the bridges are the worst. If the
public knew how many microfissures and fatigue points are
present in the steel of these old bridges there would be a
huge, expensive surge of uneducated public outrage. |
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An architect who wasn't/isn't famous enough for me to
remember his name once said (something like) "No bridge
lasts forever; as soon as you put one up it begins the slow
process of falling down." |
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////Would it have been possible, using polished copper parabolic mirrors, to focus sunlight enough to cause the individual substances comprising granite to burst free of their surrounding substances in sequence as this focal point of light changed positions?// |
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hmmm, after a bit of research I have to disagree. A polished copper mirror can have 98% reflection. [1st link]
A small-ish parabolic mirror can reach thousands of degrees and melt rock, [2nd link] so I see no reason that this technique could not have been used to shape granite. |
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Because that polished copper mirror involves metallurgy
and polishing techniques that didn't exist 20 years ago, let
alone 5000. |
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Ditto the techniques for producing a highly accurate
parabolic mirror. |
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To say nothing of the fact that copper focuses 98% of the
light in a limited wavelength band, so it won't reach the
temperature a broader mirror would. |
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And finally, there is no evidence of melted rock either in
the build or at the quarries. |
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//I think that goes for how India can deliver space projects
cheaper.// |
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There's also the fact that it weighed considerably less and
had a lot fewer delicate scientific instruments that had to
be ruggedized to survive launch forces. |
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Too bad. It would have been cool.
Two of those three points could be accounted for though. There was the ability to polish small flat copper mirrors. A near perfect parabola could be achieved by nothing more advanced than placing small flat mirrors on a horizontally suspended stretched hide, their weight alone would create the shape.
No evidence of melted rock is a pretty good sign against it though. |
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//[rcarty], is there a 'For Dummies' guide to reading what
you write? // |
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Don't worry, [RayfordSteele], it's not you. [rcarty]'s
writing
is gratuitously badly punctuated and badly worded. Its
subject matter is sometimes genuinely complex, but
there's
a rather affected layer of obfuscation on top of that. See
XKCD 169. |
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If you're still curious, you could start with Jacques
Derrida's paper "Differance", published in 1968. That's
probably the locus classicus for the style which [rcarty]
pastiches - and the agenda which that style embodies. |
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The style was
genuinely clever, albeit nasty, when Derrida pioneered it.
From
his epigoni, though, it has become lame and boring. |
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I've got a few for your consideration - tbh, they're not
that inspirational. |
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"Ich bin einer Gizani", or
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at
a pyramid"
"Life is like a pyramid of chocolate - i.e. a conic
solid with a polyhedral base, only made out of
chocolate." |
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//There was the ability to polish small flat copper
mirrors.// |
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//A near perfect parabola could be achieved by nothing
more advanced than placing small flat mirrors on a
horizontally suspended stretched hide, their weight alone
would create the shape.// |
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A catenary and a parabola are not (quite) identical, and
for the sort of focusing you are talking about, they really
need to be. There's also the issue that you only get a
catenary if your span is horizontal, and that wouldn't
leave you with the ability to aim the focal point. |
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Yes, but you could put a second, aimable mirror at the focus, shirley ? |
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//flat copper mirrors.//
Not to 98% reflective.// |
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Ok so what temp would 50% reflectivity at those wavelengths reach? |
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//you only get a catenary if your span is horizontal, and that wouldn't leave you with the ability to aim the focal point.// |
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Thank you for introducing me to the word catenary! (I had no idea) Are you sure though that the weight of resting objects on a level flat plane create a catenary rather than a parabola?... and would different shaped mirrors, (say triangular or round) create different curves? |
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As for aiming the stretched hide, enough wattle and daub applied to the underside baking in the sun would set that shape rather solidly for tilting or using as a mold to create duplicates. |
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Also, could a round spinning mold not be used to create a parabola from liquid metal which cooled while spinning... heck even drying mud would work and could then be gilded?
How perfect a parabolic mirror would a spinning tray of mercury create?
Did ancient Egyptians have access to mercury? |
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