Water bridge - kinda cool

[Colapop]

There are a few engineers that haunt these parts and I came across this;
Water bridge... over a river. Even after you see it, it is still hard to believe
Water Bridge in Germany.... What a feat!

Six years, 500 million euros, 918 meters long.......now this is
engineering!

This is a channel-bridge over the River Elbe and joins the former East and
West Germany, as part of the unification project. It is located in the city
of Magdeburg, near Berlin. The photo was taken on the day of inauguration.

To those who appreciate engineering projects, here's a puzzle for you
armchair engineers and physicists. Did that bridge have to be designed to
withstand the additional weight of ship and barge traffic, or just the
weight of the water?

Answer:
It only needs to be designed to withstand the weight of the water!
Why? A ship always displaces an amount of water that weighs the same as the ship, regardless of how heavily a ship may be loaded.
Remember your high school physics, and the fly in an enclosed bottle
project? Similarly, the super sensitive scale proved that it didn't make
any difference whether the fly was sitting on the bottom, walking up the
side, or flying around. The bottle, air, and fly were a single unit of mass
and always weighed the same.

[Wasp]

now that is f'in cool.

[Swoop]

An aquaduct.
Britain's canal system has heaps of them. Been over a motorway in a narrowboat a few years back. Will see if I can drag out the photo and scan it.
There is some wicked engineering in those canal systems!

[sAsLEX]

pffft you call that a feat of engineering this is a feat of engineering
http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.u...eel/index.html

[Switch]

Thats an awesome bridge, im amazed ive never seen/heard of it before

[Pixie]

My ancestors built these while the germans were still living in their own shit

[Ixion]

Didn't run boats down 'em but. As far as I'm aware. Odd, cos it's just the sort of thing you'd imagine the Romans being into. Since their aquaeducts were mainly for transporting drinking water, maybe they didn't want boats on 'em cos of the boat persons pissing in the water.

[marty]

there is this one that was built in 1805. very cool. i've been over it in a canal boat, enroute to the Dr Who museum...

http://www.joe.shakespeare.btinterne...llangollen.htm

[Swoop]

Ellesmere Port. That's where I ended up at one leg of the journey. It's over the river from Liverpool and is a working museum. Loads of restoration work going on there. Was offered 25 quid per hour to work there, and in the late 1980's that was fairly good money...

[The_Dover]

Was offered 25 quid per hour to work there, and in the late 1980's that was fairly good money...

I wouldn't turn my nose up at it in 2006 either mate.

Unless it involved stockings, suspenders and high heels. I'm afraid I just don't have the legs for it anymore.

[Swoop]

Unless it involved stockings, suspenders and high heels. I'm afraid I just don't have the legs for it anymore.

The stockings part might come in handy when worn over the head when doing a bank job... sort of like your avatar!

[Finn]

That is an amazing piece of engineering although it's missing a bus lane (drown you bastards!).

But we've got the Auckland Harbour Bridge. Woo hoo

[Motu]

My ancestors built these while the germans were still living in their own shit

Those Roman's were crazy.

[hazard02]

Take that nature!

[Hitcher]

Remember your high school physics, and the fly in an enclosed bottle project? Similarly, the super sensitive scale proved that it didn't make any difference whether the fly was sitting on the bottom, walking up the side, or flying around. The bottle, air, and fly were a single unit of mass and always weighed the same.

So that truck driver who was carting eight tonnes of budgies didn't have to get out at every set of lights and hammer the side of the truck to keep them all flying in case they settled and broke his rear axle?