Secret to durable ancient Roman concrete revealed

[MaxPC]

Research uncovers secret that made ancient Roman concrete so durable

[Szdfan]

It's aliens, isn't it?

[MaxPC]

It's aliens, isn't it?

Actually, they finally discovered the process used by the Romans. It was not only the ingredients.

BUT if you want "alien influences" included you could say that it was aliens who showed them how to make it.

[Robert]

BUT if you want "alien influences" included you could say that it was aliens who showed them how to make it.

We all know hat aliens, with massive technology to be able to traverse the cosmos, break the laws of physics that we know of, and care enough about this small planet would come and use stone and concrete to build stuff here.

When Elon gets to Mars, he will be taking a lot of stonemasons, I suspect.

[Ken]

Ancient people were just as intelligent as modern humans. There is no evidence that I am aware of which suggests that human intelligence has evolved in the past 2000 years. In fact, perhaps there is evidence to the contrary judging by how much stupidity we see today

So it always makes me roll my eyes when people assume that ancient people were not intelligent enough to build the things they built. The pyramids, Roman concrete, the Easter Island Moai, Stonehenge, etc. When you have 100,000 slaves and unlimited time you can get a lot accomplished.

[Szdfan]

I'm making jokes, but I agree with Ken that the "ancient aliens" trope ignores the capabilities of ancient people.

[MaxPC]

BUT if you want "alien influences" included you could say that it was aliens who showed them how to make it.

We all know hat aliens, with massive technology to be able to traverse the cosmos, break the laws of physics that we know of, and care enough about this small planet would come and use stone and concrete to build stuff here.

When Elon gets to Mars, he will be taking a lot of stonemasons, I suspect.

[Ken]

BUT if you want "alien influences" included you could say that it was aliens who showed them how to make it.

We all know hat aliens, with massive technology to be able to traverse the cosmos, break the laws of physics that we know of, and care enough about this small planet would come and use stone and concrete to build stuff here.

When Elon gets to Mars, he will be taking a lot of stonemasons, I suspect.

That is an excellent point that I had never thought about. But exceedingly true.

If ancient civilizations capable of light-speed interstellar transit were going to build technology on earth you would expect to see technology and signs of tools that are more sophisticated than a stone mason's hammer and chisel.

Like plastics and composite materials, which also last thousands of years.

[Pelerin]

When Elon gets to Mars, he will be taking a lot of stonemasons, I suspect.

Yes, actually. Ok, not Mars per se. You need steel, plastic, etc. because you have some pretty demanding environmental conditions that need to be met. But if you were an alien coming to an inhabitable planet, why bother carrying loads of heavy carborium across the galaxy when you can just build using local materials?

[Ken]

When Elon gets to Mars, he will be taking a lot of stonemasons, I suspect.

Yes, actually. Ok, not Mars per se. You need steel, plastic, etc. because you have some pretty demanding environmental conditions that need to be met. But if you were an alien coming to an inhabitable planet, why bother carrying loads of heavy carborium across the galaxy when you can just build using local materials?

You can also build carbon fiber, plastic, titanium, aluminum, glass, and steel structures using local material as well. To my knowledge, nothing built by humans on the face of this planet was brought here from extraterrestrial sources.

In fact, unless basic chemistry is different on other planets (which is extremely unlikely) the building materials here are likely to be the same and in similar proportions to those found on any other planet. Well, living materials like trees will be different, but not basic elements like iron, copper, aluminum, carbon, etc.