
Stonehenge Solved: Moving Big Rocks - gibsonf1
http://j-walkblog.com/index.php?/weblog/posts/moving_big_rocks
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CaptainMorgan
I find this amazing... I've been interested in Stonehenge for as far back as I
can remember but I'm no expert on the subject- I'm just in awe of it.

What I find interesting about this video is the claim that he "is not a
scientist" - I beg to differ. I do not know his formal education background,
but that should not diminish his ability to apply the scientific method which
he has clearly shown. After all, he is an expert in the field of moving large
objects, if there is such a field.

From wiki: "A scientist, in the broadest sense, refers to any person that
engages in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge or an individual that
engages in such practices and traditions that are linked to schools of thought
or philosophy."

From the video, it's quite apparent that he applies a systematic activity to
achieve his goal, that being knowledge in our case, and it's linked to a
school of thought - construction, and not to mention mathematics and physics
(it's obvious there's math involved here whether he knows it or not) for the
application of the scientific method.

Thus, without formal education, I feel his demonstrations clearly prove he a
scientist in the broadest sense- I'd welcome opinions for or to the contrary
if you're interested.

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mechanical_fish
_his demonstrations clearly prove he a scientist in the broadest sense_

Absolutely. And it's possible that the news just called him a "non-scientist"
to play up the "random Michigan guy in his backyard" angle.

Or, he may be a person who takes pride in the non-scientist label. It's a
class thing. Not every practitioner of the Useful Arts thinks that it's a
particularly great honor to be deemed a scientist. Some of them would rather
take the opportunity to point out that construction workers, machinists, and
technicians are pretty smart and have been doing this sort of thing, quietly
but relentlessly, since the time of Stonehenge.

This guy reminds me of one of my favorite engineers, Tim Hunkin:

<http://www.timhunkin.com/90_useful_arts.htm>

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huhtenberg
Technically, he is _applying_ the science, he doesn't advance it. So he's not
a scientist, he is one heck of an engineer.

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dave_au
Here's the main website from the guy behind it:

<http://www.theforgottentechnology.com/>

If you click through you all the pages you get some decent details on what's
going on, despite the ancient technology theme extending to the design of the
website :)

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marcusbooster
Ha. Makes you wonder if in 2000 years some guy will be digging up html table
layouts and exposing the virtues of "the forgotten technology."

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zandorg
The 2000-year old language?

A Victorian Arc!

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ZeroGravitas
The bit at the start, with him rolling square blocks reminded me of this video
of a bike with square wheels:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DLgbWu8zJubo>

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Sarsen
More important than moving the stones were the accuracy of their placement:
<http://www.solvingstonehenge.com>

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andreyf
The little rocks work if you're moving nicely symmetrical boulders across a
hard, flat surface, but I can't see them working on a grassy hill quite as
well...

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DougBTX
That's the cool thing about science and technology, it only needs one person
to see that something can be done to show everyone else.

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lpellis
Pretty cool, but I would think setting up the vertical stone is the easy part.
How do you get the 3rd stone on top?

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mlok
Maybe raising a horizontal stone just the way he did raise the one on the
video, by inserting wood underneath, a little at a time. Then, having raised
it 3 meters high (Yeah I know this is a lot) he could use his technique to
roll it on the side to get on top of the two others. Just a guess.

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ilkhd2
Well that is very impressive, and now I am puzzled - if Wall Street had such
people, would be economy be better or worse?

