Measured in Metric

This episode we attempt to uncover the mystery behind Stonehenge, the 5000 year old monument that has had archeologists and ancient alien theorists alike scratching their heads for ages. If you’ve been living under a sarsen stone and have never heard of Stonehenge, superfan John has you covered: “They’re big rocks, it’s just like, they’re big, they’re really big.”

Every episode we attempt to answer the Who, What, Why, and How behind an engineering monument, but this time we’ve found that about as challenging as moving 40 tonne stones without rope or wheels. This mysterious monument was constructed in three phases across 400 years, beginning in 3000 BCE, right around the time of the cutting edge technologies of stone tools, pottery, and growing a crop in the same place very year. The first phase wasn’t much more than a ditch and a heel stone, and took an estimated 11,000 man hours, or 460 man days to construct. Stonehenge phase two included the erection of timber posts, typical to many of the wooden henges in the area, and took an estimated 15,000 man days or 41 man years. Stonehenge as we recognize it today wasn’t constructed until another 200 years later, and took an estimated 1.75 million man hours, or 200 man years to complete.

Just how this was achieved without rope, wheels, or written language is still generally a mystery today, but Vivian and John attempt to sift through many of the theories we have today, but as it turns out few of them hold water. John guides us through a few conspiracy theories, including the wild idea that Stonehenge was constructed by an ancient race of giants known as the Nephilim under the command of the wizard Merlin. Vivian steers us back a little closer to reality with what she refers to as the “carved balls” theory, which was tested in 2010 by archeology graduate students in the UK, and revealed that a 4 tonne stone could fairly easily be moved by only 6 or 7 people.

Why the monument was created continues to elude us today, in large part because of the strictly oral traditions of those who built it. We discuss some of the more popular ideas for the monument’s purpose, such as a clock or calendar, a place of healing, or even as a neolithic music hall. Despite the mystery of why this four century long engineering project happened, it has captivated the imaginations of millions of people for thousands of years.

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Learn more at: MeasuredInMetric.com

Edited by: Astronomic Audio

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This episode we discuss Japan’s Kansai Airport, in an episode of firsts: the first airport on reclaimed land, the first time building a mega project on top of holocene clay, our first vertical infrastructure episode, and our first "what went wrong" episode.

After the building of Narita airport through re-appropriation of lands and the violent protests that followed, Japan was faced with an unprecedented challenge in constructing the Kansai airport. The airport is the first of it’s kind, built on a man-made island 3.7km from the mainland in Osaka Bay, and in many ways is an example of what can go wrong when planning for best case outcomes, with it’s initial $14 billion price tag growing by an additional $6 billion since the airport opened in 1995.

The soil in Osaka Bay is mostly submerged holocene clay, which presents unique challenges compared to building on soil, particularly around the ground settling after construction since you can’t accurately test the ground condition without disturbing and in turn changing it. After initially estimating a total of 5-10m of settlement the island has in fact sunk 13m as of 2016 and continues to sink at a rate of 50cm every year, with no idea when the settlement will end!

In 2018 the Kansai airport was struck by Typhoon Jebi, leading to what Vivian calls a “swiss cheese disaster.” Despite the many systems dedicated to disaster mitigation, each a proverbial slice of cheese, and on September 4 2018 the holes in each of these slices lined up. The first slice of our disaster sandwich occurred when a boat was blown into the nearly 4km bridge connecting the airport to the mainland, stranding approximately 8,000 passengers and staff at the airport while also severing their access to water and electricity, as well as communication lines with the mainland. Normally the airport’s emergency generators would power on, but they had been flooded and half the generators failed to start, and yet another slice lined up as the pumps built to clear the generator room in the event of a flood could not start up with power lines severed. So, while the Kansai airport broke new ground in construction methods and land use, it also stands as a reminder to why it’s best to hope for the best, but plan for the worst.

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Learn more at: MeasuredInMetric.com

Edited by: Astronomic Audio

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All roads lead to Rome, and this week we’ll be exploring the first road that led to Rome, The Via Appia. This 563km long early highway would put Rome on the map and pave the way for the Roman Empire.

The Via Appia, also known as The Appian Way, was first constructed between 312 and 264 BCE as a response to the first Samnite War leading to the decimation of Capua, who had offered themselves up to Rome in exchange for protection. Unfortunately that offer of protection was moot, with Capua being too great a distance away. The Roman censor Appius Cladius would leverage his influence and power over Rome’s treasury to secure the 259 million Sestertius required to construct the highway. While highly controversial at the time, 174 million Sestertius would be transported to Rome on the road annually, paying for itself in just a year and a half.

Romans famously built their roads without curves, and without modern surveying methods the Romans would need to employ some impressive mathematics to plan this gargantuan undertaking, which John describes as “basic trigonometry played out on a frustratingly large scale.” Much has changed in how we plan roads, but surprisingly little has changed in how we build the roads themselves since the Via Appia was first constructed over 2000 years ago. While the highway in its original form no longer exists, having been disassembled and its materials repurposed after the fall of Rome, a small portion still exists today as a tourist destination.

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Learn more at: MeasuredInMetric.com

Edited by: Astronomic Audio

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Our second episode focuses on something most of us never think about until something goes wrong: sewers. In specific, we’ll be learning about the construction of London’s Interceptor Sewers, and the 318 million bricks that went into this monument.

Sanitation in 1850s Victorian era London was a little different than our standards today. Despite the widespread use of the Victorian equivalent to a modern bathroom, the water closet, indoor plumbing as we know it today was still many years away and the vast majority of waste and sewage was going straight into the River Thames. A cholera outbreak in 1853 that killed roughly 15,000 people, the eventual fermentation of the river in 1858 known as The Great Stink, and a relocation of Parliament within smelling distance would finally lead to the hiring of Sir Joseph William Bazalgette to rectify the problem.

Bazalgette’s work would revolutionize sewers and create many of the standards we continue to use toady, including innovations such as egg-shaped sewer pipes and the use of Portland cement, which is still the most commonly used variety of cement today. As with modern engineering projects waste was a huge topic of discussion, but not in the way you’d expect. Unlike our modern concerns of waste and inefficiency contributing to environmental impact, the primary concern was wasting the sewage that could have instead been collected and sold as fertilizer in rural areas.

As a true monument to future proofing, the work completed by Bazalgette would last over 100 years, with a project beginning in 2007 to finally expand the capacity of the sewers. Today the biggest risk to sewers in London and across the world are fat bergs, congealed masses of materials such as wet wipes and cooking grease, or as John puts it, “all the stuff we get told not to flush down the toilet but we do anyway because you press flush, they go!”

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Learn more at: MeasuredInMetric.com

Edited by: Astronomic Audio

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This episode we discover the history of the Panama Canal, an engineering monument more than a century in the making, a corridor for over 200 million metric tonnes of cargo every year, and a great place for boats.

The ten hour journey through the Panama Canal made by over 13,000 ships each year was first conceptualized all the way back in 1534 by Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, Charles V, wanting a way to get ships through the Americas in hopes of an advantage over Portugal. This idea was floated next when Scotland attempted a trade colony in the 1690s, resulting in a massive financial failure that contributed to Scotland joining England to become Great Britain.

In 1855 the Panama Railroad was established to facilitate shipping from one ocean to the other, and by 1881 France had contracted Ferdinand de Lesseps to build the Panama Canal, fresh off his successful building of the Suez Canal. De Lesseps made the grave error of not visiting Panama during the rainy season, the first of many errors that contributed to massive workforce fatalities, with at times more than 200 workers dying each month. Even after recruiting Gustav Eifel for additional help, the company created to build the canal was bankrupt by 1889, having spent $287 million USD, the equivalent of $7.8 billion USD today.

In 1908 John Findley Wallace was appointed as chief engineer to right the ship, but lasted only a year before leaving the project. Enter the hero of our story, John Frank Stevens, a self-educated engineer with a history as a train engineer who, seeing the errors of his predecessors, prioritized the well-being of the workers, ultimately leading to the successful construction of this engineering mega project. “The digging is the least thing of all”

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Learn more at: MeasuredInMetric.com

Edited by: Astronomic Audio

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