A TedEd by Stefan Al
In 1956, Frank Lloyd Wright came up with a radical idea. He proposed building a mile-high tower. Critics laughed at him, saying the building would collapse under its own weight and that elevator waits would take forever. But today, we are getting closer and closer to his idea. The main difficulty was that a mile-high tower would have to handle an extreme amount of force. The higher a building goes, the more pressure is on it because the upper levels exert force on the lower ones. In ancient history, architects solved this problem by having large bases that support smaller uppers. Today, we have stronger materials like concrete that can avoid these inconvenient shapes. They are also reinforced with steel bars to make them stronger. Buildings also have steel supports called piles to prevent them from sinking or leaning over. They create friction against the ground to counteract the force of gravity. There is also the wind to contend with, which can be reduced by aerodynamic design and wind frames to divert the wind to the ground. Still, many buildings shake back and forth, so they employ a counterweight, called a tune mass damper, which oscillates with the building, absorbs the energy, and reduces shaking. The last issue is with moving through the building. Elevators must be fast enough to move people around the building. Elevators today are much faster and have complex algorithms to reduce clogging, so this has largely been mitigated. And in the future, magnetic suspension could make them even faster. It may just be a matter of time until Wright's fantasy becomes reality.
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