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Leaning Tower of Pisa Secure For 300 More Years

Posted by kdawson on from the galileo-never-slept-here dept.

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.'"

12 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. Safe for 300 years by DrXym · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Remarks like that are an open invitation for epic failure.

    1. Re:Safe for 300 years by Swizec · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The tower is safe for 300 years!!
      This ship is unsinkable!!

      Anyone else seeing similarities?

  2. That's just wrong... by NoobixCube · · Score: 2, Insightful

    To me, the Leaning Tower of Pisa was a monument of how human mistakes live on for centuries, and it was a miracle it was still standing. Now they've gone and reinforced it and taken all the fun out of it. They might as well have straightened it... It was also funny to me how an utterly useless building (who'd want to work with gravity pulling you gently towards the open window?) is conserved simply because it's old. If the same thing had happened today, which it does on a regular basis, the building would have been torn down.

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    1. Re:That's just wrong... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I'm sure the hordes of people sitting around the square in Pisa, selling miniature towers and silver tea spoons, would oppose its being torn down.

    2. Re:That's just wrong... by hey! · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well you're assuming that it will stand for centuries without any problem. Validating that assumption is useful as an engineering test case.

      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".

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    3. Re:That's just wrong... by YeeHaW_Jelte · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You sir, are a cold-hearted bastard with no sense for culture, aesthetics and history.

      Just because your overly functional mind sees no use for a building doesn't mean other people can't derive pleasure from it.

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    4. Re:That's just wrong... by ishark · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Uh?????

      who'd want to work with gravity pulling you gently towards the open window?

      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.

    5. Re:That's just wrong... by MagdJTK · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Exactly. I mean, when the French stopped using the Eiffel Tower for broadcasting, they tore it down immediately! As an Englishman, I've been campaigning for years for Big Ben to be demolished --- who needs it when we've got digital watches now? Pull your finger out, people of Pisa!

  3. Re:Crap by youthoftoday · · Score: 2, Insightful

    2034? That's quite some job security you got there.

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    -1 not first post
  4. Re:Aye, the Europeans be fit by laejoh · · Score: 0, Insightful

    You had a swamp? Luxury!

  5. Re:Gal Civ 2 perchance?! by Soft+Cosmic+Rusk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Taken from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"...

  6. Re:Stupid builders by NormalVisual · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Given the way management works, I'd imagine the builders tried to do exactly that, only to be told by their superiors to continue working until it was finished, regardless of the outcome. If it fell, the workers would be blamed for their substandard work. If not, it would serve as a testament to management's foresight and proof of their competence to any who might have criticized their decision. In no case would the project's management ever be held to any kind of responsibility for anything bad that might happen.

    It's the way it's always worked, and the way it always will work.

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