Leaning Tower of Pisa Secure For 300 More Years 168
Ponca City, We Love You writes "The tower of Pisa began to lean five years after its construction began, in 1178, and by 1990 it had tilted more than four meters off its true vertical. Conservationists estimated that the entire 14,500-ton structure would collapse 'some time between 2030 and 2040.' Now the Leaning Tower of Pisa has been stabilized and declared safe for at least another three centuries. The stabilization, which cost $30M, was accomplished by anchoring it to cables and lead counterweights, while 70 tons of soil were removed from the side away from the lean, and cement was injected into the ground to relieve the pressure. The tilt has now returned to where it was in the early 19th century. Nicholas Shrady, author of Tilt: A Skewed History of the Tower of Pisa, says that the tower was destined to lean from the outset because it was built on 'what is essentially a former bog.' Shrady adds that the tower previously came close to collapsing in 1838, 1934, and 1995. (The commission convened in 1990 to study the tower's stability was the 17th such.) Although Galileo Galilei is said to have dropped cannon balls from the tower in a gravity experiment, Shrady says the myth is the result of 'the overripe imagination of Galileo's secretary and first biographer, Vincenzo Viviani.'"
Safe for 300 years (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just wrong... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Safe for 300 years (Score:5, Insightful)
This ship is unsinkable!!
Anyone else seeing similarities?
Re:That's just wrong... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Crap (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:That's just wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
And the Tower is only useless if art and history and engineering education are useless. While its foundation of course is famously defective, consider this: the oldest parts of this structure are nine hundred years old; the newest parts are seven hundred years old. What the medieval world lacked in civil engineering, it had to make up out of a combination of trial and error, craft, and sheer daring. Because they did not have the civil engineering knowledge, any structure like this that they built might collapse at any time. It's remarkable people even undertook projects like this, which were the work of centuries, many, many short lived generations.
Yet even so, the tower has stood all this time, out of true. At the very least a fitting monument to the generations of craftsmen who built it so well.
In any case the Leaning Tower serves as the bell tower of the Cathedral of Pisa, so it is not literally "useless".
Re:That's just wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because your overly functional mind sees no use for a building doesn't mean other people can't derive pleasure from it.
Re:Aye, the Europeans be fit (Score:0, Insightful)
You had a swamp? Luxury!
Re:That's just wrong... (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you think it's an office building or what? It's a bell tower. As long as it doesn't fall it serves it purpose. What is funny is that there are many other leaning towers around, but for some reason the one in Pisa has become "The" leaning tower.
Re:That's just wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gal Civ 2 perchance?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Stupid builders (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the way it's always worked, and the way it always will work.