I don’t know how common it is here, but it needs to be said because of other stuff. Pyramids aren’t that hard to build. Most people start gasping at them, but at the very base, they are one of the easiest structures to build. Heck, they can be even created by accident. A very wide base to maximise the amount of ground you can rest on, no complex delicate internals, no need to calculate how to transmit and redirect forces.
I think part of the oohing and aahing comes from people thinking about the size of them, which again, isn’t much. If you got enough people, enough effort, and a basic knowledge of pulleys and levers, you can do a surprisingly large amount of things with solid stone.
“Anyone can build a bridge. Only an engineer can make a bridge that just barely stands.”
turkishdelight234 on
Obligatory “Aliens Did It” meme
Chalky_Pockets on
My engineering degree required me to take a history of Engineering course. I’ll never forget my professor, who looked like Kieth Urban, giving the following line, complete with a cockney British accent for the last bit:
“When the field of engineering first came to be, there were two different types of engineering: French and British. A French engineer, when tasked with building a bridge, would survey the area, see what kind of traffic is going to be going over the bridge, and calculate the amount of materials needed to make the bridge roughly twice as strong as it needed to be. A British engineer would just say “we built a big fucking bridge, it’s not gonna fall down.” Anyway, we use the French approach today, even in Britain.”
Coyote_lover on
Well the impressive part is how they moved the blocks into place. Each block of the great pyramid of Giza weighs between 2.5 and 15 tons. Moving a 15,000 kilogram rock precisely in place from a quarry, which for some blocks was as far as 500 miles to the south. One block is 80 tons in the kings chamber.Â
   And they did all of this when they only had tools made of soft copper. They didn’t even have bronze. They didn’t even have the ‘wheel’ as a technology. This would come ~900 years later.
   If this was not impressive enough, remember that this structure is almost completely intact after 4,500 years.
   You can’t say the same about almost any of our architecture. For most of it, you would be lucky if it lasts a century.
  Whoever built these could probably give any modern Engineer a run for their money.
cartman101 on
Ancient engineers: I calculated how to build this monument, which will last for thousands of years, using nothing but some weighted string attached to a tall stick: 😎
Modern engineers: autocad crashed again 🥺
Nogatron on
You know that they are more complicated inside they had if i am not mistaken one room is placed so that once a year light will reach it!
Nightingdale099 on
We should hire Joe Rogan to make it sound complicated af and hear me out , to juxtapose it , Neil TheAssMan Tyson on the opposite side.
BeepbleepLettuce on
Braindead meme
TB-124 on
Damn are you like 12 years old? This is one of the worst attempts to a very wrong and shitty meme I’ve ever seen… and I’ve seen a lot of low effort shit here…
rishin_1765 on
Ancient engineers structures lasted thousands of years
Meanwhile modern engineer’s buildings can’t even last a few decades
blubseabass on
High level of “Aristotle was a dumb-ass because he thought everything was made of Earth, Wind, Fire and Water lol” in this meme.
ChumpNicholson on
> Just sayin’, pyramids aren’t that difficult to design
Then *you* go build one, Frank Lloyd Wright.
Bames_Jond_69 on
Modern archeological since the Cold War has been cheap minimalism and designed to make you feel bad. It’s literally designed to make you think the building doesn’t give a damn about you. They don’t last, and they have no style.
14 Comments
I don’t know how common it is here, but it needs to be said because of other stuff. Pyramids aren’t that hard to build. Most people start gasping at them, but at the very base, they are one of the easiest structures to build. Heck, they can be even created by accident. A very wide base to maximise the amount of ground you can rest on, no complex delicate internals, no need to calculate how to transmit and redirect forces.
I think part of the oohing and aahing comes from people thinking about the size of them, which again, isn’t much. If you got enough people, enough effort, and a basic knowledge of pulleys and levers, you can do a surprisingly large amount of things with solid stone.
“Anyone can build a bridge. Only an engineer can make a bridge that just barely stands.”
Obligatory “Aliens Did It” meme
My engineering degree required me to take a history of Engineering course. I’ll never forget my professor, who looked like Kieth Urban, giving the following line, complete with a cockney British accent for the last bit:
“When the field of engineering first came to be, there were two different types of engineering: French and British. A French engineer, when tasked with building a bridge, would survey the area, see what kind of traffic is going to be going over the bridge, and calculate the amount of materials needed to make the bridge roughly twice as strong as it needed to be. A British engineer would just say “we built a big fucking bridge, it’s not gonna fall down.” Anyway, we use the French approach today, even in Britain.”
Well the impressive part is how they moved the blocks into place. Each block of the great pyramid of Giza weighs between 2.5 and 15 tons. Moving a 15,000 kilogram rock precisely in place from a quarry, which for some blocks was as far as 500 miles to the south. One block is 80 tons in the kings chamber.Â
   And they did all of this when they only had tools made of soft copper. They didn’t even have bronze. They didn’t even have the ‘wheel’ as a technology. This would come ~900 years later.
   If this was not impressive enough, remember that this structure is almost completely intact after 4,500 years.
   You can’t say the same about almost any of our architecture. For most of it, you would be lucky if it lasts a century.
  Whoever built these could probably give any modern Engineer a run for their money.
Ancient engineers: I calculated how to build this monument, which will last for thousands of years, using nothing but some weighted string attached to a tall stick: 😎
Modern engineers: autocad crashed again 🥺
You know that they are more complicated inside they had if i am not mistaken one room is placed so that once a year light will reach it!
We should hire Joe Rogan to make it sound complicated af and hear me out , to juxtapose it , Neil TheAssMan Tyson on the opposite side.
Braindead meme
Damn are you like 12 years old? This is one of the worst attempts to a very wrong and shitty meme I’ve ever seen… and I’ve seen a lot of low effort shit here…
Ancient engineers structures lasted thousands of years
Meanwhile modern engineer’s buildings can’t even last a few decades
High level of “Aristotle was a dumb-ass because he thought everything was made of Earth, Wind, Fire and Water lol” in this meme.
> Just sayin’, pyramids aren’t that difficult to design
Then *you* go build one, Frank Lloyd Wright.
Modern archeological since the Cold War has been cheap minimalism and designed to make you feel bad. It’s literally designed to make you think the building doesn’t give a damn about you. They don’t last, and they have no style.
Ah yes, famously beautiful contemporary engineering