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Post by Fr. Gruesome on Dec 4, 2012 10:06:17 GMT
This report is quite a silly application of mechanics and therefore a jolly good read!
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Post by tangent on Dec 4, 2012 13:19:48 GMT
Spread the load over a conical structure - like the Eiffel Tower but fatter at the bottom - and you could build a tower into space... but you would need an awful lot of Lego bricks.
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Post by Fr. Gruesome on Dec 4, 2012 15:48:17 GMT
How would you adjust the base to take account of the curvature of the earth's surface?
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Post by tangent on Dec 4, 2012 16:45:14 GMT
OK, the base would be very big and might need to curve round a bit but it shouldn't need much change. Just dig the foundations deeper in the middle.
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Post by Alvamiga on Dec 4, 2012 19:58:34 GMT
If you saw the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures a few years back, you'd know you could not build one into space as its weight would cause it to sink into the Earth's surface. It is the same reason mountains are so "small".
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Post by raspberrybullets on Dec 4, 2012 20:33:44 GMT
Legos are tough little buggers hey?
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Post by tangent on Dec 5, 2012 1:00:43 GMT
If you saw the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures a few years back, you'd know you could not build one into space as its weight would cause it to sink into the Earth's surface. It is the same reason mountains are so "small". I'm not convinced. You just have to spread the weight over a larger area.
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Post by Alvamiga on Dec 5, 2012 8:16:16 GMT
It's basic physics. If you double the dimensions of something, the mass multiplies by 8, but the area it is applied to only quadruples, so the bigger it gets, the more force is applied to any given area of ground on which it sits. The Earth's surface is strong, but the numbers involved get massive, very fast.
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Post by Fr. Gruesome on Dec 5, 2012 21:31:12 GMT
Unable to resist raising the issue of 'scale weight' ... my little engines are 1/45 of scale dimensions but not 1/45 of scale weight because the macquettes would collapse under the weight. One visual result of this is that they buck and bounce in a way that the prototype does not - even on beautifully hand-built track like mine. Strangely, the vehicle with which this is most obvious is the snow plough, or Klimasneepflug as we call it in the trade, which simply does not give the same impression of sure footedness as the original.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 9, 2012 19:13:09 GMT
Why hasn't it ever been tried?
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Post by tangent on Dec 10, 2012 0:26:30 GMT
A very tall Lego tower woul be very costly but it would also be highly dangerous, being at all times in imminent danger of collapse.
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