4 ms·

Historian uses lasers to unlock mysteries of Gothic cathedrals

27 points by bcaulfield 8y ago

ptah 8y ago
did the fire start with a laser? ;)
13of40 8y ago
I really want to read that article, but there's an advertisement covering the "continue reading" button.
netsharc 8y ago
So this is an article originally published in 2015, but now "Published April 16, 2019". Why do I feel, like how the death of artists pushes them to no. 1 on iTunes (so death is a good career move!), are news websites taking advantage of world events to get pageviews? Next level SEO-ptimizing! I suppose it's a natural evolution, Twitter spambots do it, YouTube spammers do it. Now respectable news sites too.
Iv 8y ago
Too soon.
Shivetya 8y ago
I find it fascinating the feats that they managed back in when there were no computers, no powered heavy equipment, and mostly just ambition and sweat. We too often forget that they had an incredible understanding of construction techniques and math we hide in our design programs was worked out on paper, not discounting a bit of gut feel when actually putting the structure up. This of course was not limited to the Middle Ages but stretches back through Roman times, Egypt, and the far East of China and more. note : the site wants flash for some activities so it may limit what you can view
- kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
  There is a survivorship bias in ancient structures. Those that wern't up to snuff, collapsed. Most did.
  - Luc 8y ago
    I don't think it's right to apply survivorship bias in this case. I mean, it's trivially true that anything unmaintained will collapse over a long enough time-frame, but I don't think >50% of buildings built to last collapsed before their time. If anything the damn things were overbuilt and hard to get rid of, even while being plundered for building materials.
    - alejohausner 8y ago
      Actually medieval designers did not use conservative design. Many cathedrals were not overbuilt. There was a push to make the walls and pillars thin, the ceilings tall, to create a sense of ethereal beauty. As a result, many buildings collapsed during construction, because they were pushing things too far.
      - Luc 8y ago
        But not most, I don't think.
        kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
        Cathedrals were 100+ year endeavors and sufficient care was taken in design so that relatively few failed completely. Most buildings were not cathedrals and didn't benefit from such care.
- WalterBright 8y ago
  > math we hide in our design programs was worked out on paper The Boeing 747 was worked out with paper and slide rules. The 757 was in transition from paper calculations to CAD. See "Slide Rule" by Nevil Shute.
- heavenlyblue 8y ago
  >> We too often forget that they had an incredible understanding of construction techniques and math we hide in our design programs was worked out on paper, not discounting a bit of gut feel when actually putting the structure up. What kind of understanding are we talking about here? Before Newton there was none of the understanding that is needed to build a Cathedral. The only thing they had were models and previous attempts - there’s no way they could use paper to infer whether a particular shape will be stable under conditions.
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
There's a great documentary on the construction of cathedrals which heavily relies on this same research. It's floating around YouTube (not gonna link it because if I do it will probably get flagged and taken down as I suspect it violates copyright by being there). It goes into mid level detail on how they were constructed. It's well worth watching if you're interested in this kind of thing.
acqq 8y ago
The article was written while the researcher still was alive and the researcher speaks in present tense. But now with the new interest, they republished it mostly unchanged (starting in present tense and all) but then inserted in the middle (completely shocking for me): "Tallon, who died Nov. 18, 2018, at 49..." and then the text continues: ""Every building moves," he says." Sad. There is a Wikipedia article about the researcher: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Tallon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Tallon

27 points by bcaulfield 8y ago

ptah 8y ago

did the fire start with a laser? ;)

13of40 8y ago

I really want to read that article, but there's an advertisement covering the "continue reading" button.

netsharc 8y ago

So this is an article originally published in 2015, but now "Published April 16, 2019". Why do I feel, like how the death of artists pushes them to no. 1 on iTunes (so death is a good career move!), are news websites taking advantage of world events to get pageviews? Next level SEO-ptimizing! I suppose it's a natural evolution, Twitter spambots do it, YouTube spammers do it. Now respectable news sites too.

Iv 8y ago

Too soon.

Shivetya 8y ago

I find it fascinating the feats that they managed back in when there were no computers, no powered heavy equipment, and mostly just ambition and sweat. We too often forget that they had an incredible understanding of construction techniques and math we hide in our design programs was worked out on paper, not discounting a bit of gut feel when actually putting the structure up. This of course was not limited to the Middle Ages but stretches back through Roman times, Egypt, and the far East of China and more. note : the site wants flash for some activities so it may limit what you can view

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
There is a survivorship bias in ancient structures. Those that wern't up to snuff, collapsed. Most did.
- Luc 8y ago
  I don't think it's right to apply survivorship bias in this case. I mean, it's trivially true that anything unmaintained will collapse over a long enough time-frame, but I don't think >50% of buildings built to last collapsed before their time. If anything the damn things were overbuilt and hard to get rid of, even while being plundered for building materials.
  - alejohausner 8y ago
    Actually medieval designers did not use conservative design. Many cathedrals were not overbuilt. There was a push to make the walls and pillars thin, the ceilings tall, to create a sense of ethereal beauty. As a result, many buildings collapsed during construction, because they were pushing things too far.
    - Luc 8y ago
      But not most, I don't think.
      - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
        Cathedrals were 100+ year endeavors and sufficient care was taken in design so that relatively few failed completely. Most buildings were not cathedrals and didn't benefit from such care.
WalterBright 8y ago
> math we hide in our design programs was worked out on paper The Boeing 747 was worked out with paper and slide rules. The 757 was in transition from paper calculations to CAD. See "Slide Rule" by Nevil Shute.
heavenlyblue 8y ago
>> We too often forget that they had an incredible understanding of construction techniques and math we hide in our design programs was worked out on paper, not discounting a bit of gut feel when actually putting the structure up. What kind of understanding are we talking about here? Before Newton there was none of the understanding that is needed to build a Cathedral. The only thing they had were models and previous attempts - there’s no way they could use paper to infer whether a particular shape will be stable under conditions.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

There's a great documentary on the construction of cathedrals which heavily relies on this same research. It's floating around YouTube (not gonna link it because if I do it will probably get flagged and taken down as I suspect it violates copyright by being there). It goes into mid level detail on how they were constructed. It's well worth watching if you're interested in this kind of thing.

acqq 8y ago

The article was written while the researcher still was alive and the researcher speaks in present tense. But now with the new interest, they republished it mostly unchanged (starting in present tense and all) but then inserted in the middle (completely shocking for me): "Tallon, who died Nov. 18, 2018, at 49..." and then the text continues: ""Every building moves," he says." Sad. There is a Wikipedia article about the researcher: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Tallon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Tallon