Read Online Pillar to the Sky by William R. Forstchen - Free Book Online
Authors: William R. Forstchen
Ads: Link
you want an interesting example go, take a look at the highest stone tower in England, at Salisbury, at over four hundred feet high. The support beams inside the cathedral bulge outward more than a meter from the stress. A sharp eye by a full-time structural engineer assigned to that wonder, and high-tech lasers monitoring the bulges in the support columns, keep constant watch on it, because someday the stress overload will cause it to collapse. The same is true with any tower: the more weight compressing downward due to gravity, the wider the foundation. If we tried to build this tower with tungsten steel, for example, the foundation would be scores of miles in diameter, clearly an absurd proposition.
“So, Miss Eva, your answer?”
She nodded in agreement.
“Steel gave us the skyscraper,” Erich continued, “but above a few thousand meters, you start to run into the same problem, though you could just keep expanding the support base and make the building wider—but then, that adds more weight and more foundation.
“You could build this tower of steel, even a Tower of Babel of bricks, but the foundation?”
She smiled, sensing he was playing with her a bit, but Gary did know this point was true. You could build anything you wanted to any height if you kept broadening the foundation to bear the tremendous weight, but that, of course, did not take in a number of other factors that would tear a steel tower apart long before they even got a fraction of the height desired.
“Even if you built it of diamonds,” Gary interjected, “I doubt if it would met all the stress demands.”
“There’s promising research in carbon fibers,” she replied. “It is already revolutionizing aviation design, and the Japanese apparently are doing a lot of behind-the-scenes research on this.”
Erich nodded.
“To what percent of usability?” he asked.
“I’m not sure, sir. That’s classified by them, and that fact alone should tell us they are onto something big. But the published literature is saying it’s moving along a lot further than anyone predicted five years ago.”
Erich stood up and sighed as he stretched. For the first time Gary saw him walking and noticed a slight limp—a memento, he’d learn later, of a commando attempt to capture Rommel and the source of the Victoria Cross.
The old man opened up his briefcase and, of all things, pulled out a pack of paper soda straws, then opened it up, drawing out several. Limping over to the whiteboard, he took the blue marker from Eva and drew three arrows alongside the line representing the tower.
“Whatever it is built with has to be able to withstand three stresses. The first is compression, the weight of the object itself, which increases, of course, the higher up you go. You could actually build this tower out of soda straws, but at some point the weight of the straws above will cause the bottom ones to buckle unless you add more and more to the base until they cover half the planet.”
To make his point, he held up a straw, then put a finger atop it and pressed down until it buckled.
He tossed the broken straw aside and now held up three straws and did the same, but this time they were bundled together in his hand and did not buckle.
“So tie three straws together but then you have to do perhaps two straws for the next ones atop the first three, and so on.”
He took two more straws, positioning them atop the three.
“We could play around with building a tower ten feet high now with these,” he said as he used a bit of tape to secure the three straws into a bundle, then did the same to the two atop the first three, and then the one atop the two. He set it on his desk and pressed down on the top straw with a finger until finally the structure collapsed.
It was obvious Erich had thought this little demonstration out the day before, and Gary inwardly smiled. It was more befitting of a high school science class, but it definitely illustrated the points he
“So, Miss Eva, your answer?”
She nodded in agreement.
“Steel gave us the skyscraper,” Erich continued, “but above a few thousand meters, you start to run into the same problem, though you could just keep expanding the support base and make the building wider—but then, that adds more weight and more foundation.
“You could build this tower of steel, even a Tower of Babel of bricks, but the foundation?”
She smiled, sensing he was playing with her a bit, but Gary did know this point was true. You could build anything you wanted to any height if you kept broadening the foundation to bear the tremendous weight, but that, of course, did not take in a number of other factors that would tear a steel tower apart long before they even got a fraction of the height desired.
“Even if you built it of diamonds,” Gary interjected, “I doubt if it would met all the stress demands.”
“There’s promising research in carbon fibers,” she replied. “It is already revolutionizing aviation design, and the Japanese apparently are doing a lot of behind-the-scenes research on this.”
Erich nodded.
“To what percent of usability?” he asked.
“I’m not sure, sir. That’s classified by them, and that fact alone should tell us they are onto something big. But the published literature is saying it’s moving along a lot further than anyone predicted five years ago.”
Erich stood up and sighed as he stretched. For the first time Gary saw him walking and noticed a slight limp—a memento, he’d learn later, of a commando attempt to capture Rommel and the source of the Victoria Cross.
The old man opened up his briefcase and, of all things, pulled out a pack of paper soda straws, then opened it up, drawing out several. Limping over to the whiteboard, he took the blue marker from Eva and drew three arrows alongside the line representing the tower.
“Whatever it is built with has to be able to withstand three stresses. The first is compression, the weight of the object itself, which increases, of course, the higher up you go. You could actually build this tower out of soda straws, but at some point the weight of the straws above will cause the bottom ones to buckle unless you add more and more to the base until they cover half the planet.”
To make his point, he held up a straw, then put a finger atop it and pressed down until it buckled.
He tossed the broken straw aside and now held up three straws and did the same, but this time they were bundled together in his hand and did not buckle.
“So tie three straws together but then you have to do perhaps two straws for the next ones atop the first three, and so on.”
He took two more straws, positioning them atop the three.
“We could play around with building a tower ten feet high now with these,” he said as he used a bit of tape to secure the three straws into a bundle, then did the same to the two atop the first three, and then the one atop the two. He set it on his desk and pressed down on the top straw with a finger until finally the structure collapsed.
It was obvious Erich had thought this little demonstration out the day before, and Gary inwardly smiled. It was more befitting of a high school science class, but it definitely illustrated the points he
Similar Books
