OT; Corning technology

[Brian K. White]

On 3/8/2011 1:43 PM, Fairlight wrote:
> Confusious (Richard Kreiss) say:
>>
>> As in "how were the pyramids built?"
>
> There was a special (I think on Discovery, maybe PBS) about them trying to
> erect one of the obelisks by hand, using only the technology that would
> have existed in Ancient Egypt.
>
> To say it didn't go well is an understatement.  And the obelisk wasn't even
> full size.  I want to say it was like 1/10 or 1/5 scale.
>
> The pyramids...the ramp theory makes about as much physical sense as the
> Easter Island statue moving theories, which is to day it falls short in
> practise.  I've seen specials on the latter, and I wasn't buying that,
> either.  They didn't have very good luck replicating Easter Island's
> activities, and that was -minus- the extra hats that go on.
>
> mark->

Most of those experiments that attempt to perform the ancient deeds 
today are so riddled with buffoonery, half-baked theory, and 1/4-baked 
implimentation that to me they prove nothing. Nothing.

Usually the researchers are trying something on a shoestring budget and 
they only have time and resources to try one version of one idea one 
time using a handful of students and a few hours for labor, and when 
that craps out they conclude the idea couldn't possibly be how the 
ancients did it.
Ridiculous. Even today most of what we actually DO takes comparatively 
tons of trial & error before it actually works. Then something of that 
gets re-used as a starting point for others but each new building still 
has some amount of new hands on trial & error.

If a stone block was too heavy for a particular type of wood carved to a 
particular shape or used a particular way, be it rollers or levers or 
slides or hoists etc... they'd try variations ad nausium and all kinds 
of things would turn out to work to some extent. Something researchers 
today don't have the luxury of, not having an unlimited supply of either 
slaves or devoutly religious volunteers or paid labor, nor time, nor 
materials.

-- 
bkw