OT; Corning technology

[Kenneth Brody]

On 3/8/2011 2:52 PM, Brian K. White wrote:
[...]
> 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.
[...]

Yep, that's my thoughts on it as well.  Even a modern "expert" in ancient 
technologies doesn't have centuries of experience behind him, as the ancient 
"expert" would have.

Just look at the pyramids in Egypt.  The oldest ones obviously still have 
the engineering being tweaked.  For example, the "Bent Pyramid" started at 
too steep an angle, which was then changed part-way through to keep it from 
collapsing on itself.  Other pyramids went through other design changes over 
the decades/centuries.

-- 
Kenneth Brody