Slashdot Mirror
Ancient Roman Concrete Is About To Revolutionize Modern Architecture
schwit1 sends this news from Businesweek:
"After 2,000 years, a long-lost secret behind the creation of one of the world's most durable man-made creations ever — Roman concrete — has finally been discovered by an international team of scientists, and it may have a significant impact on how we build cities of the future. Researchers have analyzed 11 harbors in the Mediterranean basin where, in many cases, 2,000-year-old (and sometimes older) headwaters constructed out of Roman concrete stand perfectly intact despite constant pounding by the sea. The most common blend of modern concrete, known as Portland cement, a formulation in use for nearly 200 years, can't come close to matching that track record. In seawater, it has a service life of less than 50 years. After that, it begins to erode. The secret to Roman concrete lies in its unique mineral formulation and production technique. As the researchers explain in a press release outlining their findings, 'The Romans made concrete by mixing lime and volcanic rock. For underwater structures, lime and volcanic ash were mixed to form mortar, and this mortar and volcanic tuff were packed into wooden forms. The seawater instantly triggered a hot chemical reaction. The lime was hydrated — incorporating water molecules into its structure — and reacted with the ash to cement the whole mixture together.'"
Can this discovery of old stuff be patented today, or is the fact that the romans did it so long ago constitute prior art? Or will the argument go like "We don't have a treaty with the Roman Empire regarding Intelectual Property Rights, an nobody did this in our country yet, so sure, go ahead an patent it"...?
People are amazed by this new discovery and yet legality was the first thought here.
I know you were somewhat joking here, but this is exactly why we can't have nice things. Too many damn laws stand in the way of true innovation anymore. It will be our demise.
I find it odd that there are claims this is new information. Didn't Vitruvius describe it in his De Architectura, written about 15 BC?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_architectura
Perhaps the story is confusing the known composition with some mechanism that the new study discovered.
> I know you were somewhat joking here, but this is exactly why we can't have nice things.
> Too many damn laws stand in the way of true innovation anymore. It will be our demise.
And I suspect that some (specifically, the owners of that "Intellectual Property") peoples' real attitude is that they will be on top of you and me as we all sink, and the sinking will stop while they're still above water. Whether or not you and I are above water will not be relevant, as long there are enough left to do the necessary work for a pittance.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
You left out the most important one of all. Welfare.
I'm sure that Roman concrete greatly varied in quality. Every batch was an experiment using local materials.The crap that didln't last for 25 year is long gone. All we have left to look at today are the results of successful experiments. And it is a wise thing to learn from it. But to consider everything the ancients built as evidence of their genius disregards the winnowing of time. Good stuff lasts, bad stuff falls apart and is discarded.
Absolutely, the patchwork put together by Diocletian (separating the Empire into the East and West) was evidence that the empire was falling apart. The argument for and against different reasons would take too long to go into but, among them are, the collapse of the Republic into a police-state/Empire; crazy laws to keep the status quo (your father was a brick layer means that you must be a bricklayer); people fleeing the taxes and the ever present civil wars; climate change (became wet and cool) meaning that less land was available for agriculture plus the rise of diseases. Plagues swept Europe from 200-700 in the cool period; the plagues disappeared from 700-1350 in the medieval warm period and then returned every generation from 1350-1700.
Other things contributed to the collapse such increased border invasions from Central Asia tribes (perhaps due to Chinese expansion forcing these tribes westward). Whatever it was - the collapse of the Roman Empire was not due to the rise of Christianity.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
The harder part may be finding enough suitable sources of volcanic ash that can be mined, and not all ash has the same mineral ratios and such. That would still limit its use unless there's some way to make a decent enough man-made equivalent that's better than the Portland formula.
And right there you've put your finger on both the source of the mystery and why this won't work everywhere.
In ancient Rome they didn't have the huge reduction furnaces used in the creation of Portland Cement. All they had was the raw materials found laying around or easily mined. Living in a volcanic region near the sea they had both in abundance.
In other areas conquered by Rome they never found the same mix of volcanic materials, lime, and seawater, and the structures they built there did not hold up as well. The aluminum-rich pozzolan ash isn't exactly something you find in the British isles or France. And away from the sea, any available water would be used. Its entirely possible the Romans had no no idea that sea water was essential to this mixture.
The whole thing was an accident of geography, and apparently one which no one cared to look into too closely, or those that did were unable to replicate due to raw material availability, because analysis of the composition of roman cement was well withing the scientific capabilities of even the 1800s and probably even the 1600s.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Christianity was part of the cause of the downfall.
Another argument against that idea is that while the Western Empire fell in the 5th century, the Eastern Empire, which was just as Christian, continued for another 1000 years.
For all the bashing on Wikipedia I remember seeing several studies that showed that, excepting controversial topics (which can suffer from orchestrated edit wars and astroturfing), the accuracy was generally on-par or better than The Encyclopedia Britanica and other "gold standard" sources. It may not always be completely accurate and up to date, but will typically be as reliable as any other single reference source, and the information will often far more detailed and accessible than most.
So how about instead of bashing one of the most reliable and comprehensive encyclopedias in the world, you instead go ahead and update the page that links to the obsolete periodic table image. You don't even have to understand the markup, just search for the link and make the minor tweak. Or do you really prefer to be one of the gawking bystanders?
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.