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Heh! OK, so I'm wrong about being able to sail a container ship under the Iron Bridge. It didn't take motor traffic, because when it was built, there was no mo
by denton-scratch 3y ago
Heh! OK, so I'm wrong about being able to sail a container ship under the Iron Bridge.
It didn't take motor traffic, because when it was built, there was no motor traffic. But the claim I replied to was about all bridges. But it used to take vehicle traffic: the WP article says "In 1934 it was designated a scheduled monument and closed to vehicular traffic."
- Retric 3y agoAnd all bridges do last roughly 50 years. Look at all bridges and figure out the average, median, or mode lifespan is reasonably close to 50 years +/- depends on where you draw the lines. A tiny fraction reach 500 and so far none that we know of have hit 5,000 though there’s a few possibilities.
- ClumsyPilot 3y agoThis is really bad math, your calculation is not about bridge strength / longevity but about how many bridges we built recently. For example, if tomorrow we decided to build a new bridge next to every old bridge, average lifespan would half.
- Retric 3y agocurrent age != lifespan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy > if tomorrow we decided to build a new bridge next to every old bridge, average lifespan would half. The only way building a bunch of new bridges changes lifespan is if we changed how they where built. Figuring out lifespan rather than age is at best an approximation after looking at the bridges that didn't survive and the condition of bridges that do, but the uncertainty is low.