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[-] SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml 173 points 4 months ago

As a Stonemason, this shit always bothers me. Recent example was an article on stone henge. "Scientists still mystified as to how the stones were stood so that to caps were level!"

Mfr! Give me a straight piece of wood, a length of string and a rock, I will make you a basic level. Don't want to lift the stone in and out multiple times to adjust the level? Get logs and cut them to the same length as the upright stones. It's not fucking rocket surgery!

[-] Icalasari@kbin.social 35 points 4 months ago

Trying to picture how you do this with those. Brain is stuck on hanging rock from wood with string which feels like I'm going the wrong way

[-] Empricorn@feddit.nl 55 points 4 months ago

I swallowed my rock, can I be excused?

[-] egonallanon@lemm.ee 16 points 4 months ago

No you have to act as the string now so start dangling.

[-] Deconceptualist@lemm.ee 26 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Drafting* class taught me that you can build any structure with just a T-square, a compass, a pencil, and some basic math.

*As in the precursor to Computer-Aided Drafting. My school was cheap and didn't let us use AutoCAD till the 2nd semester.

But anyway, place the straight piece of wood across a gap. One end of the string goes around the middle of the wood, the other end hangs down where you tie the rock. You can visually tell with decent enough accuracy if the rock is hanging closer to one side (not level) or just straight down (level). If you can't tell, get a longer string.

[-] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 18 points 4 months ago

some basic math.

The pyramids at gizeh predate most of that. They predate algebra by some 800 years.

Of course, despite Pythagoras not being born for some 2000 years, they DID have Rope stretchers to create square angles. They also had square levels and plumb bobs for making straight blocks and level surfaces.

You don't even need maths, just rope and gravity.

[-] shuzuko@midwest.social 5 points 4 months ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mathematics

"From 3000 BC the Mesopotamian states of Sumer, Akkad and Assyria, followed closely by Ancient Egypt and the Levantine state of Ebla began using arithmetic, algebra and geometry for purposes of taxation, commerce, trade and also in the patterns in nature, the field of astronomy and to record time and formulate calendars."

The first "true" pyramids were not built until ~2613. Prior to that it was all step pyramids, which are much less complex - just put a bunch of consecutively smaller squares in a stack. Even then, Djoser was started in ~2670, several hundred years after the "introduction" of basic math. Just because we don't have extant physical mathematical texts surviving from that time doesn't mean they didn't know how to do math.

[-] prole@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Yeah dude, I took a drafting class way back in HS (really enjoyed it), yet have maybe seen three drafting tables since (and I'm in a field that would have previously had countless).

I know that stuff was basically immediately made obsolete by CAD and what not, but there was always something relaxing and meditative about sitting down at (or standing if you so choose) a drafting table, armed with nothing but a pencil, an eraser, a T-square, a protractor, and a couple plastic triangles, and coming up with some really impressive looking shit with perfect perspective.

If I had the room for one, I'd def get a drafting table... lol I'd probably end up using it to hang wet clothes on to dry.

[-] JJROKCZ@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

Think your school was cheap? My school only had CAD on 3 machines and you had to take 4 YEARS of drafting courses to be allowed to use it, I graduated in 2012… this shit wasn’t new tech at that time lol

[-] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 16 points 4 months ago

That's actually all there is to it.

Out the stick where you want the thing to be level, and hang a rock off it with string.

The rock hangs straight down. Adjust what the stick is sitting on until the stick is perpendicular to the string.

It's not the most accurate or easiest to use tool we have available today, but they're still used for vertical alignment.

It's one of the oldest tools we have. Hasn't really changed since they were used during the building of the pyramids.

[-] SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml 14 points 4 months ago

The rock and string, with help from gravity point down to the ground. If angle between the stick and string isn't 90°, then it's not level.

[-] Icalasari@kbin.social 4 points 4 months ago

So I DID visualize it right, but forgot about angles

[-] SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 months ago

Hey, it was (I assume) Monday. You can be forgiven for forgetting about angles on a Monday.

[-] JayDee@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 months ago

I'm just imagining rocket surgery. It's dope.

[-] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 25 points 4 months ago

Yeah people simply can't fathom that people in the past were just as intelligent as people are now. They just didn't have quite as much technology as we do now. Also people tend to think of technology as being magic and don't actually understand the underlying science that makes that technology work was the same in the past.

This results in weird ideas about how something isn't possible without a laser level or whatever.

And people tend not to think about skill being a factor. Probably many of the skills you have as a stone mason aren't too different from the skills people had in the past. Sure there's some technology you have available to help you now, but a larger part of it is just skill gained from experience working with stone that's completely independent of technology.

[-] SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml 12 points 4 months ago

FUCKING THANK YOU!

For instance, yes I use grinders and saws to cut big pieces of stone into smaller pieces so they fit where I need them, but I was taught how to do all that by hand as well. Sometimes you don't have power or petrol, but the shit still needs to go up!

And the way we do things now is just a continuous evolution from how we did it then. I don't have to sharpen my chisels every 30mins because we have better materials. I don't have to break a giant billet of stone into manageable sizes(I can though) because a shop does it for me. And almost all of the old tech is still in use, albeit in a new form or in new materials.

Wire/string friction sawing has been around for millenia....here's an example of a new bit of kit.

[-] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 7 points 4 months ago

Yeah a lot of technological improvements aren't really changers, they just make people more productive at their jobs.

My brother is a plumber and his biggest annoyance is people that think "if I had your tools I'd be able to do your job." Nope, that's not how things work at all. Weird how some people think technology makes skill obsolete.

[-] SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 months ago

Exactly! I used to do solo jobs, and it's shocking how many people balk at my (legit very reasonable) rates, and say things like: well you're just piling up some rocks.

[-] Rodeo@lemmy.ca 15 points 4 months ago

Give me a straight piece of wood, a length of string and a rock, I will make you a basic level.

Well axshually that's a plumb bob.

[-] SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml 15 points 4 months ago

Right you are, but 99% of people would be all: don't you Bob for apple? Why Bob for plum?

[-] Sprawlie@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago

I don't know, but why are we judging Bob for the fruit he likes?

[-] Hadriscus@lemm.ee 3 points 4 months ago

Y'all seem to understand one another, but I'm lost

[-] Rodeo@lemmy.ca 6 points 4 months ago

An apple bob is a children's party game where a bunch of apples are floating in a basin of water and you have to try to get one out only using your mouth.

It's really gross as all the kids are just slobbering over all these apples together. Terrible for germ spread.

Anyway it's not done with plums though, which are a kind of fruit and different from the word "plumb", which means vertical. So it's a play on words.

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 6 points 4 months ago

And a plumb bob is a very basic level where you attach a weight to a string, and that string to a flat thing. Wikipedia says they were used at least in ancient Egypt, so it's particularly relevant.

[-] Hadriscus@lemm.ee 3 points 4 months ago

Oh, so that's plumbum, lead ? I should have guessed from the french fil à plombstring with lead Cheers !

[-] Hadriscus@lemm.ee 2 points 4 months ago

Thanks ! I had no chance of unraveling that on my own. Appreciate it

[-] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 months ago

I'm not bob, guy.

[-] omgarm@feddit.nl 8 points 4 months ago

One day we'll find a way to stop making rockets out of human organs.

[-] SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml 6 points 4 months ago

One day, but not today!

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAAAAA!

[-] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago

I always took it to mean that organic rockets are harder than rocket science and brain surgery put together, which is why we don't have them yet.

this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2024
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