Here is Gary's baby off for its final swim to Venice, Italy from Spain. Yes, it is exactly is what it looks like: a floating chunk of concrete (with 20,000 tons of processing equipment on top of it). Most my family has mentioned that 'gee - it's ... concrete ... and I am pretty sure that stuff sinks in water ...' - so pretty much Gary is magic (or has a masters in Structural Engineering and damn smart if I say so myself ... and a wee bit magic). Why does it float? - cause it's full of steel silly! Ok, hollow steel somethings or others that hold the pressurised liquid natural gas. Whenever this subject rears its' head, Gary just sighs and say "Archimedes Principle still works" assuming that the rest of us just thought that all laws of Physics went down the toilet when it comes to Gary's work. (By the By in Wikipedia: Archimedes Principle says: blah, blah, blah .... The net upward buoyancy force is equal to the magnitude of the weight of fluid displaced by the body. And then a bunch of blah, blah, blah, but you get the gist, I'm sure....).
Oh, the title: I always ask him what would happen if something he designed sunk .....
2 comments:
It certainly passed the acid test well--it floats! The photo actually makes it look like a large ship.
Dad
That, my friend, would make Derle Thorpe proud. Isn't he the "concrete" specialist at Utah State?? Nice!!!!
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