Coral Castle / Edward Leedskalnin 1

[ornerynorsk]

This fascinates the heck out of me. I'm not going to write a word about what it is, because you either know or don't, and have strong opinions or not. Let's just see where the thread leads.

 

[ewh]

There was a video on utube recently explaining how he could have accomplished it on his own using primitive tools, but I don't have time right now to research it.

"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - [small]Robert Hunter[/small]

 

[GregLocock]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_Castle

I have no opinion

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIGlease see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[drawoh]

ornerynorsk,

I looked at some of the internet sites and I did not see anything explained, other than that he was an exerienced mason. As an experienced mason, he would know how to move heavy stone blocks around.

Did anyone record the stuff found at his worksite, after his death. That would answer some questions.

JHG

 

[ornerynorsk]

I should have posted this link first time around but couldn't find it at the time.

http://www.keelynet.com/leed.htm

Yes, he did have experience with stone, 'tis true. But, he quarried, moved, and erected these stones without any heavy equipment, by himself. He had no derricks or gantries, no hoists, no helpers. To this day, there is a stone gate that pivots on a vertical axis that he put in place, by himself, that is so well balanced that it moves with a touch of a finger.

Fascinating stuff. He had some unique and curious views on gravity, magnetic fields, electricity, and the like.

Never been there to actually see it, it's on my list of pilgrimmages to make some day.

 

[MintJulep]

"It must have be levitation because no body ever saw him working."

That's enough to convince me.

 

[ornerynorsk]

Hi Mint,

Got to admit, when I first heard about this umpteen years ago, I was immediately skeptical, as well. After doing a bit of reading, I began to be intrigued by it. Edward had a homebuilt generator on his property, with wires (a field?) strung all over his grounds.

The physical evidence of what he accomplished is there, as well as enough eyewitnesses to corroborate the lack of machinery and laborers.

We all know that coral stone is non-magnetic, and to my knowledge, no naturally ocurring gravitational anomolies are present on or near the grounds.

Science has never been able to explain this one, I guess that's what makes it so interesting.

 

[drawoh]

ornerynorsk,

You missed the point of my question. How do we know he had no carts, derricks or gantries?

He could have kept them in pieces, assembling them when he needed them. After his death, someone would have seen a pile of junk and they would have thrown it out.

Any good handyman project ought to have one or two features in it where people wonder how the heck it got done. Leedskalnin did a particularly good job of this.

Maybe his helper has not come forward.

JHG

 

[crossframe]

Maybe this is how...

http://j-walkblog.com/index.php?/weblog/posts/moving_big_rocks/

Although I vaguely remember a TV story where a delivery driver said Leedskalnin unloaded something very heavy like this in less time than it took for the driver to walk to the cab and back. The method in the link is ingenious, but not very fast.

 

[ornerynorsk]

Thanks everyone for your posts and links so far. Drawoh, I guess we don't know 100% whether or not he had mechanical helps. Crossframe, I remember also reading about the accounts of the truckdriver when he moved his "castle" to Homestead from his first location. Edward would require him to leave the truck overnight, when he would load the blocks, same thing on the unload end. He wouldn't allow people to watch him work.

Hoists and gantries and tackling are all fairly substantial pieces of equipment, particularly for moving objects of this weight. Edward was 100 pounds, by most accounts. It might be a feat of engineering for him just to set up such equipment, let alone performing the work of lifting and moving. The old boy might have been on to something, who knows.

 

[jmw]

When I watch David Copperfield, David Blaine and his ilk or, more impressively, Daren Brown, I don't find it necessary to believe in magic or the supernatural.

I may not know how they do it but I know the answer will be simple. Actually, the trend these days is to explain the tricks and without sacrificing much in the way of entertainment in many cases.

Now I could sit down with books like "The Riddle of the Sphinx", The Old Straight Track" (by Alfred Watkins and about Ley Lines and the mysterious centres of power) and so on and pursuade myself that there has to be some supernatural phenomena at work.

But today I tend to think there is some really simple explanation if I did but know it. The fact that I can't work it out doesn't mean it can't be done nor that it won't be damn simple.
It doesn't mean I don't enjoy the tricks, do.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[ornerynorsk]

I agree that there is a simple explanation. The only missing piece of data is the explanation! Tesla, same thing. There are people in this world who have an acute understanding of things that, for whatever reason, the general population overlooks or dismisses. Who can say what gravity is? What causes it? Yes there are a boatload of theories and hypothesis', but what is it? Is it the resultant flux of a magnetic field, the earth being a generator itself? So why are non-magnetic and non-metallic objects affected? My list of questions could run ad infinitum, so I'll stop here, I have zero qualifications when it comes to talking physics at that level, but you get the idea. Mind-bending! I love it.

 

[MintJulep]

Arthur Clarke postulated:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The thing a lot of people don't understand is that frame of reference is that of the observer.

Just because an observer doesn't understand how something works does not mean that it does work by magic.

 

[drawoh]

ornerynorsk,

Was it Archimedes who said that he could move the world, if he had somewhere to sit?

A hundred pound guy would have a better chance of shimmying up a tree to install a pulley than I would have at 200+ lb. Use a long enough lever. Use enough pulleys. Make a crane of of easily assembled and collapsed components. Break the building components down into smaller components than you realize. Large blocks could be hollow.

By the sound of it, he was lifting blocks weighing hundreds of pounds, not D9[ ]bulldozers at tens of thousands of pounds. The required crane might not be very substantial.

JHG

 

[ornerynorsk]

Yes, I think the quote was, with a long enough lever, something to that effect. Most of the monoliths are, in fact, multi-ton. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a head-in-the-sky type that won't accept any other explanation other than "unconventional means", shall we say. I've just posted this thread to allow people to voice their theories and opinions without being bashed or ridiculed. However, I still personally believe, with what is known thus far, the evidence supports that he did not use conventional, well-known means to move these stones. I am most certainly not calling it magic or supernatural, there is an explanation. We just don't know what the explanation is. Hopefully someday we will. This is the basis of all exploration and discovery, seeking answers to the unknown. Tesla (my other favorite subject) would have burned as a witch had he been born 200 years earlier.

 

[IRstuff]

And nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[drawoh]

ornerynorsk,

Try Google.

How To Move Heavy Stuff

Read anything by Penn and Teller. I have How To Play In Traffic. They do not move heavy stuff, but they explain lots of other things you can do that, apparently, are inexplicable and impossible.

JHG

 

[ornerynorsk]

Good link to the book Drawoh, Thanks!

 

[Ussuri]

"Give me a long enough lever, and a fulcrum on which to place it and I shall move the world"

 

[ewh]

Thanks, crossframe... that was the video I was thinking about.

"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - [small]Robert Hunter[/small]