Oddbean new post about login | logout You see it in the beginning of the video; simple locks. Submerge the channel horizontally to fill it, *seal the locks*... and LIFT. Once it's sealed, it's effectively a solid object that can be moved with people pulleys & leverage, to any location & any orientation necessary to float rocks. And let's be real...No one can argue that the Egyptians of all ancient cultures were bad at sealing things (but they may have been bad at treating their workforce like real people, who knows?) šš
Iām not sure. In the video, the locks are in a plastic tube (which is tough enough to withstand the pressure of the small volume of water in the demonstration). How would the Egyptians have built such a thing that could have withstood the water pressure of a gigantic tube? According to AI, a tube 10 feet in diameter and 50 vertical feet would put pressure at the bottom of the tube of 700 lb/sq inch. On a 1 sq ft block of stone at the base, that would be 100,000 lbs pushing out for 50 vertical feet. For 500 vertical feet, that would be 1 million lbs pushing out. Not sure how they would have constructed a tube to withstand that.
These were not prehistoric people, they were fully evolved creative innovators like we are today. They could have lifted blocks one by one, but I seriously doubt they didn't also think to lift any tools, machines, animals or water to help the job get done before the emporer dies. š¤·āāļø For kicks, ask AI to generate some possible solutions besides pure slave labor that could conceivably have taken place, given Idunno, 50 or 100 years to beat the deadline of the kings death?