{"id":1617,"date":"2014-07-15T18:24:28","date_gmt":"2014-07-15T23:24:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/?p=1617"},"modified":"2014-07-16T00:20:37","modified_gmt":"2014-07-16T05:20:37","slug":"lego-space-elevators-and-tall-structures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/?p=1617","title":{"rendered":"LEGO Space Elevators and Tall Structures"},"content":{"rendered":"

At this URL<\/a>, there are two YouTube videos.\u00a0 The first shows a “space elevator” being constructed by a LEGO Mindstorm kit.\u00a0 Slow, clunky, but kind of cool.<\/p>\n

The second video discusses tall structures built by humans and ends in speculation about building a space elevator.\u00a0 Nice to see that the author\/narrator (Vsauce<\/a>) seems to have his scientific facts correct.\u00a0 Two cool moments in the 10+ minute-long video…\u00a0 The first is at about 3:12 and shows one of those very tall radio masts snapping in half and collapsing – always neat to see things breaking!\u00a0 And the second cool moment, at least for me, occurs around the 5:30 mark. \u00a0 Vsauce discusses how you can actually see two sunsets (or sunrises, if you’re so inclined) in the same day by physically manipulating your body at the moment of sunset (or sunrise).\u00a0 To emphasize the point of your height above ground being a factor as to when you see a sunset, Vsauce mentions that a ruling by the Dubai Islamic Affairs Department actually had to be made for Muslim residents of the Burj Khalifa (the world’s tallest building) in Dubai as to when the sun set.\u00a0 This is important for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan – you cannot break your fast until “official” sundown and, for residents of the Burj Khalifa, sundown is declared at one ‘official’ time for residents from floors 1-79 and at another ‘official’ (and later) time for residents of floors 80 and up.<\/p>\n

Yes, they take such things very seriously in the Middle East (and, I assume, wherever Muslims live in great numbers).\u00a0 I lived in Saudi Arabia for eight years and, during the times I was in-Kingdom for Ramadan (Eid Al-Fitr) and\/or Islamic New Years (Eid al-Adha), I was greatly intrigued by the attention that was paid to this.\u00a0 The newspapers would project the actual clock times these events would begin.\u00a0 For Ramadan, as noted above, it was when the sun set on a certain day.\u00a0 For New Years, it was the first sighting of the new crescent moon during the proper lunar cycle.\u00a0 When this happened for New Years (in Jeddah, at least) a ceremonial cannon would be fired and the person who first sighted the new moon would win a prize.\u00a0 There is a story (probably apocryphal) about someone who happened to walk in front of the ceremonial cannon just as it was set off and was blown to bits.\u00a0 No, I don’t believe it either…<\/p>\n

As an aside, the Muslim calendar is 12 months long, as is the Gregorian one, but it is strictly governed by lunar cycles.\u00a0 This means each month is about 29.5 days long with an Islamic year being about 354 days long.\u00a0 So, the months (and the holidays) gradually cycle ‘backward’ through the Gregorian calendar.\u00a0 When I first arrived in Saudi Arabia, in 1979, the Islamic New Year (Eid Al-Adha) was in late November.\u00a0 In the 35 years since (jeez, has it really been that long?), the New Year has gradually moved backward through the Gregorian calendar (for example, in 1995, the Islamic New Year was at the end of May).\u00a0 Fun facts with dates!<\/p>\n

Anyway, both videos are, IMHO, fun to watch.<\/p>\n

And, in keeping with the theme of this post, this<\/a> is a very short, very awesome video…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At this URL, there are two YouTube videos.\u00a0 The first shows a “space elevator” being constructed by a LEGO Mindstorm kit.\u00a0 Slow, clunky, but kind of cool. The second video discusses tall structures built by humans and ends in speculation about building a space elevator.\u00a0 Nice to see that the author\/narrator (Vsauce) seems to have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews-presentations","category-news-announcements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1617\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}