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Re: Pyramidiocy (was Re: Strange Maths)
Whittet (Whittet@shore.net)
19 Jul 1995 23:04:11 GMT
In article <DBxDoz.5vI@midway.uchicago.edu>, meron@cars3.uchicago.edu says...
>
>>Well, the pyramids are neater, and more people stand around the pyramids
>>thinking "wow, great people must have done this, and so creative too!"
>>than stand around big tablets and go "ooh, we can't read this".
>>
>>All in all, I think they did pretty good, in imparting their "superior"
>>knowledge in a, uh, unique (yeah, that's it) way.
>
>Sorry, but I fail to be much impressed by pyramids. While I can appreciate th
>e
>logistical abilities of the people that built them, I don't see them as
>examples of creativity or great engineering. Stones piled in heap of
>diminishing cross section create an inherently stable structure, but so what.
>To me an example of great engineering (done without the benefit of computers o
>r
>even a slide rule) are the great Gothic cathedrals.
The computer which made both the Pyramids of Egypt and the Gothic cathedrals
possible was the framing square. The discovery that a scale model of a right
triangle could be used for computing ratios was a major breakthru.
For those who have never piled up a heap of stones the pyramids may not be
so impressive. To get an idea of whether or not it is as easy as it sounds
look at the joints in a modern building, or even a stone curbing. Sight
along it and see how straight it is.
After half a century of studying their construction I have a fairly good
idea of what they could and could not do. As an architect it impresses the hell
out of me that people 4500 years ago were able to do this kind of work.
>
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>Mati Meron
Steve
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