Cool Bridge
05-22-2006, 04:34 PM
#1
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Cool Bridge
Got this Email from my sister today..
"Even after you see it, it is still hard to believe" !
Water Bridge in Germany.... What a feat!
Six years, 500 million euros, 918 meters long.......now this is engineering!
This is a channel-bridge over the River Elbe and joins the former East and
West Germany, as part of the unification project. It is located in the city of Magdeburg, near Berlin. The photo was taken on the day of inauguration.
To those who appreciate engineering projects, here's a puzzle for you armchair engineers and physicists. Did that bridge have to be designed to withstand the additional weight of ship and barge traffic, or just the weight of the water?
Answer:
It only needs to be designed to withstand the weight of the water!
Why? A ship always displaces an amount of water that weighs the
same as the ship, regardless of how heavily a ship may be loaded.
Remember your high school physics, and the fly in an enclosed
bottle project? Similarly, the super sensitive scale proved that it didn't make any difference whether the fly was sitting on the bottom, walking up the side, or flying around. The bottle, air, and fly were a single unit of mass and always weighed the same.
"Even after you see it, it is still hard to believe" !
Water Bridge in Germany.... What a feat!
Six years, 500 million euros, 918 meters long.......now this is engineering!
This is a channel-bridge over the River Elbe and joins the former East and
West Germany, as part of the unification project. It is located in the city of Magdeburg, near Berlin. The photo was taken on the day of inauguration.
To those who appreciate engineering projects, here's a puzzle for you armchair engineers and physicists. Did that bridge have to be designed to withstand the additional weight of ship and barge traffic, or just the weight of the water?
Answer:
It only needs to be designed to withstand the weight of the water!
Why? A ship always displaces an amount of water that weighs the
same as the ship, regardless of how heavily a ship may be loaded.
Remember your high school physics, and the fly in an enclosed
bottle project? Similarly, the super sensitive scale proved that it didn't make any difference whether the fly was sitting on the bottom, walking up the side, or flying around. The bottle, air, and fly were a single unit of mass and always weighed the same.
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. I wonder are there locks at both ends of the bridge or is the water the same level on both ends.
05-22-2006, 05:11 PM
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05-23-2006, 07:34 AM
#5
Re: Cool Bridge
I have one of them in my town. Not to that scale, but it dates back to the 1800s. It is an aqua-duct that was used prior to the railroad to pull loads to and from Boston. It is a canal that went over the river. It's not in use, but the structure is still there. It was quite a feet of engineering back in the day.
