
Italy’s famous dome is cracking, and muon imaging may help - LinuxBender
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/cosmic-rays-could-help-unlock-the-secrets-of-brunelleschis-dome/
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Hoasi
> But scholars aren't quite sure how this goldsmith with no formal
> architectural training managed to construct it.

That's just slightly patronizing to say about a man who came up with various
inventions and innovations in his time—including the first linear perspective
method, among other things.

~~~
adriand
You're not kidding - I hadn't read about him before, but wow.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filippo_Brunelleschi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filippo_Brunelleschi)
Architecture, ship engineering, mathematics and sculpture. The dome itself is
the largest brick-constructed dome in the world.

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ginnungagap
Not directly related to the article but if you visit Italy make sure you go to
Florence and see the dome. I was there less than a week ago, it wasn't my
first time in Florence but it was the first time I went up to the lantern on
the dome, it is _that_ impressive

~~~
cageface
I was just there too. Florence is full of amazing stuff to see. I don't think
I'll go back in August again though. Too hot and crowded.

~~~
giovannibajo1
I live in Florence. I’m actually surprised you thought there were too many
people in August - the city is empty because locals went to vacation, and is
actually low season for hotels because many countries in Europe start schools
around the 15th. I was walking last night downtown and I was impressed how
empty it was :)

At the same time, weather in August is better than July and June on average —
you usually get some storms and thus some relief from hot. But yes, it’s still
hottish but that’s Italy.

It’s true that the best seasons would be Spring and Fall. But you get many
many more tourists, longer queues, and much higher prices for hotels. So YMMV.

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tim333
>Over the summer in 2015, Guardincerri and her students built a mock-up of the
dome's thick inner shell out of radiation-shielding concrete bricks ... After
just 17 days, all three iron bars were clearly visible in the resulting image.

You can see the iron bars and muon images here, pdf, pages 11 and 13
[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1601.01291.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1601.01291.pdf)

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tqi
> Filippo Brunelleschi left no detailed blueprints for how he built his famous
> structure.

"Don't worry, the code itself is the documentation." \- Brunelleschi, probably

~~~
manmal
IMO a better analogy would be him making a binary, throwing away the source
code. Self-documenting code is always the most up-to-date documentation, and a
valuable source of insight. Additional documentation would also be required,
of course.

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8bitsrule
Recently watched this very-well-done PBS Show on the story of the dome.

"Great Cathedral Mystery"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kCZeN6d1cA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kCZeN6d1cA)

~~~
pauldavis
That particular YouTube video has problems. A better version of the same
content is
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkBaxFuh40E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkBaxFuh40E)

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hyperion2010
Given the other things that have appeard on the front page today, this is an
exemplary tale of the importance of open source. Some day people could die
because our software is closed and undocumented. We are not all lucky enough
to build such an iconic structure that governments will fork over millions of
dollars hundreds of years after our deaths to reverse engineer our code.

edit: Heh, looks like this has touched a nerve with some subset of the
readership, which means that I have done my duty.

~~~
saagarjha
> Brunelleschi built a wooden and brick model of his plan but deliberately
> left out crucial details and left no comprehensive blueprints so his rivals
> could not steal his secrets.

This sentence makes me so angry. If you’re going to come up with a great new
way of doing something then the worst thing you could do is to keep it a
secret so it’s impossible to figure out how it works and it ends up forgotten.

~~~
realusername
> This sentence makes me so angry. If you’re going to come up with a great new
> way of doing something then the worst thing you could do is to keep it a
> secret so it’s impossible to figure out how it works and it ends up
> forgotten.

It's the case for lots of inventions, the ones which are not documented end up
forgotten. I could add as an example the Russian Olivier Salad
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivier_salad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivier_salad)),
where the modern recipe only comes from a sous-chef of the original restaurant
which sort-of reverse-engineered the recipe, because the recipe was totally
secret. We still are not sure that recipe is exactly the same as the original
one.

~~~
irrational
A family "friend" growing up made the most delicious dinner rolls. But she
refused to share the recipe with anyone because they were a family secret. The
pure selfishness just boggles my mind.

~~~
adrianN
There was a Reddit thread about secret family recipes where a lot of them
turned out to be store bought stuff prepared by following the instructions on
the box.

~~~
tobr
Describing a Reddit thread but not linking to it is somewhat in the same vein,
don't you think? :)

There's this great Atlas Obscura article + HN discussion from a few months
ago:

[https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/secret-family-
recipes-...](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/secret-family-recipes-
copied)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16534495](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16534495)

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samatman
This title is... not great.

This is neither the first nor the second famous dome in Italy that came to
mind.

~~~
acheron
Really? This is the first that came to mind for me. The only one that might
"outrank" it in my mind is the Pantheon, but I wouldn't think anyone would
refer to that as "Italy's famous dome", they'd just say "the Pantheon".

Plus the original title in the URL specifically calls it "Brunelleschi's
dome", which even if you don't know/remember Brunelleschi, does rule out the
Pantheon just from the name.

