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MIT Students Show How the Inca Leapt Canyons
PCOL writes "When Conquistadors came to Peru from Spain in 1532, they were astonished to see Inca suspension bridges achieve clear spans of at least 150 feet at a time when the longest Roman bridge in Spain had a maximum span of 95 feet. The bridges swayed under the weight of traffic terrifying the Spanish and their horses, even though, as one Spaniard observed, they were almost as "sturdy as the street of Seville." To build the bridges, thick cables were pulled across a river with small ropes and attached to stone abutments on each side. Three of the big cables served as the floor of the bridge, two others served as handrails and pieces of wood were tied to the cable floor before the floor was strewn with branches to give firm footing for beasts of burden. Earlier this year students at MIT built a 70-foot fiber bridge in the style of the Incan Empire. The project used sisal twine from the Yucatan Peninsula and anchored it by wrapping it around massive concrete blocks. The weekend's burst of activity was preceded by 360 hours of rope-twisting as the 50 miles of sisal twine was turned into rope. Working together as a group was part of the exercise. "A third of the time was spent learning to work together," one of the students said. "But after a while, we were banging those cables out.""
Engineering students built a bridge? Stop the presses!
They managed to accomplish something that had already been done hundreds of years ago? Get. The. Fuck. Out.
Wow. Next they will develop institutions to teach kids the ways of the past so that they can improve on them.
Only an ignorant moron or an Academy indoctrinated liberal would think that non-Western cultures couldn't come up with some rudimentary physics.
Really, China did just F'ing fine without Newton thank you very much.
The physical universe is out there for all to discover.
Let me guess you are an Academy indoctrinated liberal.
Is your hate politically correct hate?
Do you believe that racism is wrong unless you hate white people?
Do you believe that sexism is wrong unless you hate men?
Do you believe that sexual discrimination is wrong unless you hate heterosexuals?
Do you believe that religious intolerance is wrong unless you hate Christians?
Do you believe that freedom of speech involves censoring offensive non-Politically Correct speech?
Do you believe that DoubleThink is hard and that DoubleThink is easy?
Do you keep such an open mind that your brain fell out?
Are you a hypocrite and a bigot? Do your friends praise you for it and call you morally superior? Do you think that your bigotry makes you a better person than others?
How, exactly, does this advance science?
No, seriously. I'd love to know.
Yay for you! You went to MIT and made rope bridges. Fan-fucking-tastic.
Now, where's the cure for AIDS, a system to destroy asteroids, a practical flying car, or something cheap & easy to produce that'll replace oil?
Thanks for proving to the world, yet again, that "college" in America is nothing more than a goddamn kindergarten class for spoiled children in adult bodies.
the harsh reality is that acient non european's WERE stupid compared to us, hence why we were able to invade their arse so easily.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....