The big rock and rollers
QUESTION What is the heaviest object moved by humans without powered machinery?
This was the Thunder stone, the pedestal of the Bronze horseman in st Petersburg, Russia.
The rapakivi granite stone, weighing an estimated 1,500 tons, was found in 1768 at Lakhta, 3.7 miles inland from the Gulf of Finland.
Catherine the Great ordered it to be taken to st Petersburg, and the task was given to Greek engineer Marinos Carburis. he had it placed on an iron sledge running on bronze spheres over a track.
it took 400 men, assisted by capstans operated by 32 men, nine months to move the stone up to 492 ft a day, all the while being cut into its final form and weight of 1,250 tons. No animals were used. At the coast, it was placed on a barge and it arrived in st Petersburg in 1770.
Objects close to this weight were moved considerable distances in antiquity. The now broken 62 ft high syenite statue of Ramesses ii in Luxor, Egypt, dating from the 13th century BC, originally weighed an estimated 1,000 tons and was transported 170 miles by land and water.
The vanished obelisk in the sanctuary of Arsinoe in Alexandria, Egypt, was probably larger. At 138 ft, it was comparable in size to the unfinished obelisk at Aswan, Egypt, which weighs about 1,100 tons. it was carved in the reign of Nectanebo ii (360343 BC) and erected in the sanctuary by Arsinoe’s husband in about 270 BC.
Larger stones have been quarried but not moved, notably at Baalbek, Lebanon. Three, estimated to weigh 1,650, 1,240 and 1,000 tons, were found in the quarry about 1,000 yards from the site of heliopolis for where they were destined. The site was completed in about AD 60, but the stones were never used. Three other stones at the site, each weighing 800 tons, are among the largest moved.
The story that in about 235 BC Archimedes singlehandedly launched a ship, laden with crew, freight and passengers and using a system of capstans and pulleys, was probably exaggerated. A more credible account describes Archimedes launching the syracusia when it was half complete, before fitting out, with the aid of a few men using a capstan.
its size was evidently prodigious, carrying as it did about 2,000 passengers, 200 soldiers and 1,800 tons of cargo as well as horses. Digby Stevenson, Pevensey, E.Sussex.
QUESTION Where does ‘Inner’ London end and ‘Outer’ London start?
FURTHER to the previous, comprehensive answer, for practical purposes inner London approximates to that part of London inside the North Circular and south Circular Roads.
Outer London approximates to the area between the North Circular and south Circular Roads and the M25 orbital motorway. To be strictly accurate, North Woolwich, a small area north of the Thames, was in Kent until 1965. Frederic Stansfield, Ramsgate, Kent.
QUESTION When was the last time a football club in the English top division fielded a team made up solely of English players?
ON February 27, 1999, Aston Villa became the last club to field a team of allEnglishborn players (and named three English subs as well) against Coventry City in a Premier League match at Villa Park. Villa’s team was: Michael Oakes, steve Watson, Gareth southgate, Riccardo scimeca, Alan Wright, Paul Merson, ian Taylor, simon Grayson, Lee hendrie, Dion Dublin, Julian Joachim. subs: Gareth Barry, stan Collymore, Mark Draper. A 37,899 crowd saw Villa thrashed 41.
More recently, Burnley’s team against spurs in 2014 consisted of ten Englishmen and a scot, while Blackpool’s starting lineup against Manchester united in 2011 had seven players from England, two from scotland and two from Wales. Tony Matthews (football statistician/
author/historian), Almeria, Spain.
QUESTION When, and by whom, was the one-way glass/mirror used in police interview rooms invented?
A ‘ONEWAY’ mirror is really a ‘twoway’ (partially transparent) mirror that is lit on one side only.
Modern oneway mirrors are glass with a very thin coating of a reflective metal.
someone on the lit side would see just a reflection, as the reflected light would be stronger than the light from the darker room. On the dark side, the light transmitted from the lit side would be much stronger than the light reflected off the mirror surface, so the darknessshrouded spy can see everything happening in the lit room. if a light is turned on in the dimmer room, the effect is destroyed.
The first patent for a oneway mirror was issued to Emil Bloch, of Cincinnati, Ohio, on February 17, 1903. he said: ‘The object of my invention is to produce a backing which will be cheap and durable and which will render the glass highly opaque to all ordinary lightrays directed on to the face of the glass and clearly transparent when the artificial lights are operated in the rear.’
it soon became a feature of police interrogation rooms and as a means of observing customers in stores and casinos.
Ordinary glass is a crude oneway mirror because it reflects about 4 per cent of the light that strikes it. At night, anyone outside can see into a brightly lit room, but anyone in the room has difficulty seeing out because the light is reflected by the window pane.
David Levin, London SW4.
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