Elsewhere:

Alberta Blogs

aaron.braaten [at] gmail.com

@abraaten.

Archives

Rock hard

I’ve measured it, buffed it, hammered it and put epoxy on it. It’s rock hard and everyone uses it – it’s cement. All that cement knowledge has finally paid off. I’ve spent many summers surveying concrete foundations, and now I’m a cement economist. Nice coincidence. I’m learning tons of stuff about the North American cement and ready-mix concrete industry, and while your average person doesn’t find it interesting, I think it’s awesome.

To show you how much I know, I commented on the Portland Cement Association’s recent opinion poll on a study done by some dudes who conclude the pyramids of Egypt were not built out of limestone, but a pourable concrete-like limestone slurry.

From the PCA:

Egyptians Lacked Concrete Know-How
A Drexel University study concludes that the Great Pyramids of Egypt are made of cast concrete blocks rather than cut limestone. What do you think?
Responses (percent)

* Concrete blocks 31 (36.90%)
* Limestone 53 (63.10%)

Notable comments:

“May have lacked the technology to pyroprocess the limestone into cement.”

“Impossible since the limestone of a nearby quarry in the Tourha area in Cairo under microscope is the same as the pyramid’s stone.”

“Other scientists have found human hair within these cast stones in South America. Go do your research. Tests involving moving stones with ropes and tree trunks continue to prove existing theories wrong. This is a case where science is trying to prove the world is flat.”

“They would have had to use steel forms to get the joints between the blocks as tight as they are. Where are the forms?”

Yeah. That last comment ‘of note’ was mine.

Grandinite: Like cement, only way smarter.

Leave a Reply

 

 

 

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>