The year 2000 marked the end of the second millennium since the supposed date of the birth of Christ. The British government set aside money from the National Lottery for several engineering works to mark the year. The best known is the Millennium Dome in London's east end, but there are others. Today I came across one I had not heard about, The Falkirk Wheel . What I like about it is that it uses engineering principles from Archimedes and cost only $25 a day to run.
Never seen anything like that before. It would be so interesting to watch in action.
ReplyDeleteIt's wonderful to hear you continue to improve, and I hope your CT scans in two weeks show absolutely no hint of cancer!
The Ferris wheel, of course, is nothing like the Falkirk wheel, but the similarities in their names struck me. The story behind the Ferris wheel is quite fascinating. it was built for the world's fair held in chicago at the turn of the century. The idea was to "out Eiffel the Eiffel tower" with a feat of engineering.
ReplyDeleteMr. Ferris designed and supervised it's construction. An interesting vignette is the story of the crowds rushing on to the as yet uncompleted cars (which lacked windows, doors and planned safety measures that had yet to be installed) during it's first test run.
It was a success at the fair, but ultimately was taken apart and sold for scrap. Mr. ferris died at a relatively young age and was bankrupted and poor.
DWCLL
You can see it working at http://FalkirkWheel.notlong.com
ReplyDeleteAnother structure completed for the Millennium was teh London Eye, a huge Ferris Wheel opposite the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben.
ReplyDeleteDo look up the Wiki article on it. It is a means of transfering boats from one canal to another 80 feet higher without using locks. The canals link Edinburgh and Glasgow.
ReplyDeleteAfter viewing the video it is fascinating to see that the Falkirk Wheel really is like the Ferris Wheel...for boats.
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