They weren't relying on the lowest bidder?
this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
47 points (94.3% liked)
News
23275 readers
3419 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
You made me literally laugh out loud.
Lowest bidder meant different things back then (citation needed)
Also don't forget about survivorship bias. We don't know how many percent of their buildings are still standing. Probably only the really really good build ones. Also never forget, any idiot can build a bridge that stands. It takes an engineer to built one that barely stands. And that is often what we are doing today. Making our stuff "good enough" as otherwise it wouldn't be economic feasible in the short or midterm. I am still curious how good it would be if we would instead aim for the long-term though..
More ancient buildings have fallen than are standing I'd imagine but I don't agree that just anyone can built a bridge. I'm not an engineer so I feel really inadequate making an opinion though. I agree 100% it would be very interesting to see how building practices would change if the goal were to construct buildings for longevity. There are lots of considerations though: weather, earthquakes, natural disasters, etc.
Another user posted a practical engineering video that I hadn't seen yet and I heard your exact phrase about anyone building a bridge that stands so mea culpa i didn't know any better.
Hey, no need to apologize for anything 🙃 yeah, that phrase is a quote ire st least kind of a meme.
I try to own up to my mistakes.
Isn’t the big hint that they were built without a reliance on concrete. And are pyramids?
This just in, big blocks of stone are durable!
Just for clarification are you saying the Romans didn't build with a reliance on concrete?
They used bulk concrete and well fitted stone. Bulk concrete doesn't really decay but is hard to build with, so we typically reinforce it with rebar. Rebar makes concrete much stronger and less brittle, but it also corrodes, and when the rebar fails, so does the reinforced concrete.
We could build things like the Romans did, but it would be more limited and expensive.
This exactly. No penny pinching and not going the easy route. Also majority of their buildings is not standing. Only expensive things are.
Also, it just takes a lot more mass to produce a structure out of bulk concrete, and you can't build something like a high rise out of it.
There's new developments in concrete reinforcement which have the potential to replace rebar and last longer, but they're very new
It seems like we build with a 50 to 100 year lifespan in mind. If I'm wrong please correct me. I wish some of our infrastructure, bridges especially, could be built with a long lifespan in mind.
It's an inherent problem with reinforced concrete. We couldn't build the same structures without it, and it only lasts so long.
I thought they figured this out already, and it was a combination of the lime chunks allowing the concrete to heal, and also mixing it hot somehow made a difference.
I've heard lots of reasons. One was that the Romans used volcanic ash, which has some kind of special structure that maked it durable. I've also heard that it had to do with using salt water. Obviously not using rebar is important to longevity. The article talks about the lime chunks in the Roman section. I'm kind of a sucker for any article about Roman history though.
Well then, eat your heart out!
I read a good chunk of that and I'm not going to lie the chemistry part went right over my head. My new favorite phrase is "post-pozzolanic reactivity."
This guy has an interesting video on the topic. https://youtu.be/qL0BB2PRY7k
I love practical engineering. I've watched other videos in that series but I never saw this one. Thanks!
I thought that many roman structures were built with space for wooden structures in between or incorporated into, but of course those bits are gone. Lot to be said for how people stealing stone from these structures would have also kept them sound, for safety's sake, and been basically stewards for them. What blows my mind is the few cedar beams in the pyramids that are still present. Yeah, the way we build and use our environment is shit, unsustainable, and requires an unbelievable amount of oversight and maintenance.