The Forbidden City in Beijing was at least part reconstruct with the assistance of an “ artificial ice path , ” a 70 - kilometer glacial superhighway make and maintained by 16th - century construction crews to slue huge stones into Beijing .
Writing for theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , authors Jiang Li , Haosheng Chen , and Howard A. Stone excuse that , after combing the historical record , they were able to piece together a convincing narrative for how this extraordinary motorway of methamphetamine hydrochloride was made .
The building ’s engineer , they explain , without a river or canal to bank on for water , first savvy a series of wells along the path from quarry to construction site , around every half - kilometer ; water was then pump up and diffuse across the ground , where it was allowed to freeze , creating a running route surface .
It was a variety of one-dimensional methamphetamine hydrochloride - skating rink used for easily transporting huge carve sway — elephantine pieces of geology remove from the stone pit and slue like elephant across the landscape .
It ’s important to note that the authors — all of them engineers — have get along to these finis base on their own reading of the historical record ; an ice superhighway does n’t leave behind much behind in the agency of archaeological ruination , after all , and they had to rely on textbook .
In other words , there are no diagrams or blueprints for how this 16th - century chicken feed road might actually have been made — but there are plentiful description and a few examples from the time , suggest that “ ice lubrication ” might very well have been used to move large structures , and the contextual data available in the texts they refer to makes this a compelling possible action .
The authors also cite one incredible present - day case , however : alike frosty methods were used , they write , to move “ an entire 1,200 - short ton building of the Anda Railway Station ( parallel 45 ° N ) on an artificial ice route during the period from January 14 to February 4 , 2013 , in Heilongjiang Province , China . ” ( An unreadably chaotic auto - transformation of a Chinese tidings point goes into what appears to bemore detail here — good luck ! )
Whiletheir own papergoes on to delineate some of the technology specifics — slope , friction , slope , temperature — speaking only for myself , I am far more concerned in the uncanny vision such an Methedrine route conjure up , as if desperate Taiwanese engineers , working five 100 ago , could have hosted a bewildering and surreal winter construction festival , with elaborated building large and small — even detach , amply furnished rooms — all sliding around on the ice like aThames Frost Fair , building slip past one another in a lazy choreography temporarily mistake for urban design .
Thames Frost Fair ( 1683 - 84 ) , by Thomas Wyke , viaWikipedia
We ’ve seenrollingcities : why not trash - skate 1 ?
https://gizmodo.com/this-awesome-roaming-city-can-work-and-it-actually-make-1457939772
Recall , for example , the insane plan to builda colossal stilted glacier in the heart of Ulan Bator , or the function of military ice - technology techniquesto make bridges and roads in the Arctic , or even the fact thatartificially refrigerate permafrost , held in station with cooling pins , presently supports the continent - spanning substructure of the Beijing - Lhasa railway system ; practice this to the construction and maintenance of our cities — whether we ’re establish monuments or conserve infrastructure — would be perfectly ludicrous but surreally exquisite , a kind of permanentHarbin Ice Festivalwe can all live within . [ Science News ]
Opening look-alike and painting both viaWikipedia
ArchitectureChina
Daily Newsletter
Get the best technical school , skill , and finish news in your inbox day by day .
News from the future , delivered to your present .
You May Also Like
