Poll: The Great Pyramid or The Great wall?

[imhotepmp]

I'm having a small debate with a friend about which of these wonders was more difficult to design and implement from a engineering standpoint. I say the pyramid hands down wins out of pure difficulty. Just managing a way to get hundered ton blocks up to the top was difficult in itself. There must have been some systems of levers and pulleys which aided the slave workers. Also, arent the pyramids aligned with the stars as well?

Although it was a magnificent feat for the chinese to build a wall hundreds of miles long, the simple fact remains, its just a very large wall. She of course disagrees, her argument is that the sheer length of the wall was a far more difficult undertaking.


Anyone care to agree or disagree?


imhotep(MP)

 

[saxman]

I think the pyramids are apples, the wall is a really long banana.

(its like comparing apples, to oranges)

 

[orbadelic]

dare I say it but I think they were both equally "difficult" to construct. I respect them both as architectural masterpieces of there time.

 

[Killbat]

The Pyramids are built with a precision that defies even modern standards. I remember hearing something about the flatness of the base of the Great Pyramid, I think it was some 10% or less (height variation) of today's requirements for a building. :Q

 

[tinneric]

The pyramids were definately more difficut to engineer, while the great wall was more time consuming...IMHO

 

[ManSnake]

the wall is a really long banana

LOL

 

[imhotepmp]

<< We know from geometry that there is a universal relationship between the diameter of a circle and its circumference. Consider this: The height of the Pyramid's apex is 5,812.98 inches, and each side is 9,131 inches from corner to corner (in a straight line). If the circumference of the Pyramid is divided by twice its height (the diameter of a circle is twice the radius), the result is 3.14159, which just happens to be pi. Incredibly, this calculation is accurate to six digits. So the Pyramid is a square circle, and thus pi was designed into it 4,600 years ago. Pi is demonstrated many times throughout the Pyramid.

Other numbers are also repeated throughout. Each of the Pyramids four walls, when measured as a straight line, are 9,131 inches, for a total of 36,524 inches. At first glance, this number may not seem significant, but move the decimal point over and you get 365.24. Modern science has shown us that the exact length of the solar year is 365.24 days.
>>





<< Amazingly, the outside surface stones are cut within 0.01 (1/100th) inch of perfectly straight and at nearly perfect right angles for all six sides. And they were placed together with an intentional gap between them of 0.02 inch. Modern technology cannot place such 20-ton stones with greater accuracy than those in the Pyramid.
>>



Precision that even by today's standards is hard to beat.

Pyramids..hands down

 

[imhotepmp]

<< (its like comparing apples, to oranges)
>>



Not really, imho. What I'm looking at is difficulty in design and construction from a modern engineer's standpoint.(I myself not being one)

theyre both buildings which were constructed by ancient peoples for different reasons.



imhotep(MP)

 

[cyclistca]

The Pyramids no question. In fact over Christmas my cousin was telling me about a documentary where they tried to construct a building using simular methods to the Egyptian. The bottom line was that the Egyptian must have used some other methods other then the ones that we believed that they did.

The Great Wall on the other had was well a square wall. Does anyone know how long the wall is?

 

[shiznut123]

dang, those egyptians are freakin smart.

 

[imhotepmp]

<< Does anyone know how long the wall is? >>




Well over 6,000 kilometers....will look for exact number




imhotep(MP)

 

[beat mania]

<< Other numbers are also repeated throughout. Each of the Pyramids four walls, when measured as a straight line, are 9,131 inches, for a total of 36,524 inches. At first glance, this number may not seem significant, but move the decimal point over and you get 365.24. Modern science has shown us that the exact length of the solar year is 365.24 days. >>



okay, that pi thing was alright, a unit is a unit no matter how you divide it, but inches wasn't define until many moons after the construction of the pyramid, need I remind you. maybe 100 years from now, someone would say the great wall of china's lenght is exactly pi beatmania units to a million digits. I could make up any units to measure length for it to fit that.

Are you trying to measure the designs from today's standard? Their building were separated by a few thousand years so of course the longer ago it was, the more difficult to build something like, right?

Saying that, I admire the pyramids for all the cool traps inside. But Chinese kings' tombs aren't lacking in that area either. Architectually, the GWoC looks much nicer than a bunch of tetrahedrons (?)

Anyone knows how well the GW handles natural disasters (earthquakes, etc?)

 

[shopbruin]

<< Anyone knows how well the GW handles natural disasters (earthquakes, etc?) >>

its still there, isn't it?

 

[jaydee]

I'm not so sure the Egyptians built The Great Pyramid. It is by far, more unique than any other pyramid built as well as so much larger. The precision found in it noted by imhotepmp, is unlike anything else built by the Egyptians. For instance, it is without hieroglyphics, and has many Biblical connections. Many scholors believe it was used as the Bible before it was written later on. Examples of such evidence:



<< Inside, there is a broad way that leads to a pit and a narrow way that leads to the King?s Chamber. (Sounds like Matthew 7 to me.)

The 153 steps of the narrow way match the 153 fishes gathered in John 21:11, which may be a reference to all nations of the earth gathering into the kingdom of God. (See John 21:11)

The King?s Chamber is on the 50th row of the stones; 50 was the year of Jubilee. (See Leviticus. 25:11)

Inside the King?s Chamber is a solid carved, empty red granite tomb the same volume as the Ark of the Covenant. (EXACTLY)

Although most have been torn off, the pyramid was originally covered with 144,000 polished casing stones, the number of witnesses in Revelation 7. The stones were a perfect fit such that many of the seams could not be seen nor a paper put between them today, thousands of years later.

The cornerstone at the top is missing, symbolic of Christ, the rejected chief cornerstone ( Daniel 2:45; Psalm 118:22; Matthew 21:42; Mk 10:12). The 5 sided cornerstone may represent the number of grace.

&quot;In that day shall there be an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the LORD.&quot; Is. 19:19. The pyramid is on the border when Egypt was divided into a northern and southern kingdom and in the midst when they united. >>



I'm not pretending to know all the answers, but those are quite convincing if you ask me. Just the facts. Nonetheless, it is a magnificent building that has 90 times the volume of the Sears Tower in Chicago. Nothing built on earth today can match it.

 

[beat mania]

<< << Anyone knows how well the GW handles natural disasters (earthquakes, etc?) >>

its still there, isn't it? >>



yes, but for how much longer?

 

[Bluga]

They are both equally difficult. If you think Pyramid is more difficult to construct than you are wrong. The Pyramid is harder to design but The Great Wall is more difficult construct. Great Wall is located in the remote mountainuous region and is much harder to get tons of block onto the mountain. (Egyptians had waters ways). I've been to both places and i think both are magnificent.

 

[Bluga]

Facts from Discovery

It's more than 2,000 years old, but the Great Wall of China remains one of the great wonders of the world, an engineering feat rarely matched in the 22 centuries since its construction began. Stretching 4,500 miles, from the mountains of Korea to the Gobi Desert, it was first built to protect an ancient Chinese empire from marauding tribes from the north. But it evolved into something far greater ¡X a boon to trade and prosperity and ultimately a symbol of Chinese ingenuity and will.
The truth is, though, that the Great Wall is actually a series of walls built and rebuilt by different dynasties over 1,000 years. And while they often served the same purpose, these walls reflected the worlds ¡X both natural and cultural ¡X in which they were erected. For all its seeming timelessness, the Great Wall is an emblem of China's evolution.

 

[dcdomain]

Well, I'm Chinese, but I'm going to have to swallow my pride on this one. As an architecture major, I happen to think both are similarly hard to built, but in design, I happen to think that the Pyramids were harder to design. The accuracy of the Pyramids are amazing, whereas the Great Wall, is great because of it's large size (only mad made object that can be seen from space). It's sort of quality over quantity. The Pyramid wins quality wise, but the Great Wall wins quantity wise. Both are of the same difficulty to build.

 

[StageLeft]

The GW is truly magnificent, but I sure wouldn't have wanted to be the guy who had to design and start construction (or finish it is the hard part) on the pyramid. GW is just a wall - but very very large. Pyramid is more difficult.

 

[imhotepmp]

I agree with the consensus.... by far the manpower and time needed to construct the GW is a testament to china's greatness.



<< only mad made object that can be seen from space >>



Actually before the stones were taken from the top of the great pyramid, it was reported that you could see it from isreal and even the moon. But infortunately, the arabs plundered them and used them in the construction of their buidlings.


imhotep(MP)

 

[UG]

The Great Wall is a huge engineering feat that dwarfs the pyramids.

The Great Wall is a monumental testament to Chinese ruler-sponsored homocide and human enslavement without equal.

Today, the modern Chinese Communists think it makes a great public relations monument to Chinese achievement. Reasoned people see it for what it really is: a human grave yard for tens of thousands of slave laborers, if not many, many more.

 

[Gatsby]

In terms of utmost precision I believe the pyramids are supremly more difficult to build then the wall

BUT in terms of actual difficulty, the great wall has to win hands down. Most people have the image of the great wall near Beijing but the wall goes all the way to the Gobi desert and there are some places where a 70 degree incline is present.. You had to hand carry the damn bricks up to those locations. No easy river to help you move up a mountain.

But they are equally great.

Gatsby - 878

 

[dcdomain]

OH right right, forgot about the terrain, the terrain where the Pyramids were built seem pretty flat to me. Anyway, yeah, isn't it sick that they buried dead workers in the wall? Ugh...

 

[Doggiedog]

I thought both the pyramid and great wall used peasant workers who were idled during the non-harvest season.

Correct me if I'm wrong.