Gigantism is a never-ending temptation • Hacker News Board

Re: Gigantism is a never-ending temptation

#21

Post by njarboe » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 6:34 PM UTC

JasonFruit wrote: post #14

On the other hand, you have the man who built several of the biggest, which were also in many cases the first, successes in several different areas of engineering: Isambard Kingdom Brunel[0]. He built the largest ocean-going vessel of his time (the Great Western and the even bigger Great Eastern), the first tunnel under a navigable river (the Thames Tunnel), the longest bridge of its time (the Clifton Suspension Brid…

The Great Eastern has a cool history and was critical in ushering in the modern age. It was the only ship that existed that could carry a single cable of telegraph line the length of the Atlantic. Not having splices in the cable was quite important for them to function and survive in the early days. The ship was mostly a financial failure until it started being used all over the world to put down long ocean-spanning telegraph cables.

Re: Gigantism is a never-ending temptation

#22

Post by frosted-flakes » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

rockostrich wrote: post #16

crawl_soever wrote: post #15

When are we going to have a viable compact smartphone again? They have slowly became larger until they're so gigantic I cannot fit in one hand. Oh Sony Xperia Compact. I hope you don't ever die!

The iPhone SE is ~5.5" by ~2.5" which is pretty compact which isn't that much bigger than the Xperia Compact.

That's still pretty big. For me, the ideal size is that of the iPhone 4S or the BlackBerry Q10.

Re: Gigantism is a never-ending temptation

#23

Post by lowdose » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 7:26 PM UTC

The Egyptians where the first to figure out if you want to build something permanently you have to make the components so heavy 4 persons can’t take it with them. Otherwise someone eventually will and it is just a matter of time someone actually does.

Re: Gigantism is a never-ending temptation

#24

Post by credit_guy » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 8:17 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #18

1940s era Battleships are probably unnecessary gigantism, but it should be noted that the 'massive' ironclads of the 1890s were completely obsolete by the much bigger, heavily armored Dreadnoughts. (The battleships of 1890s were too small and impractical, leading to the development of the 1900s era bigger ships) The only reason Super-Battleships of the 1940s didn't work was because aircraft carriers were better. When…

> See Bismark vs HMS Hood

Bismark was not meaningfully bigger than HMS Hood. According to wikipedia, Bismark had a full load displacement of 50300 tons vs 47430 tons for Hood. Both ships had eight 15 inch guns.

Re: Gigantism is a never-ending temptation

#25

Post by nradov » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 9:20 PM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #10

GuB-42 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"bigger is better" is true in many cases, not just wind turbines. This can be because of economies of scale, for example a bus and a taxi need only one driver, so if you want to move many people, buses will be more efficient use of drivers. But it can be just physics, usually some variation on the square cube law. For example a large container will generally be lighter per unit volume/mass. Similarly, if you want to…

This article, on the other hand, argues that precisely ships are severely constrained by existing physical limits: * maximal depth of many important ports, * maximal width and depth of Panama and Suez channels. It isn't as efficient to build an übergiant that must take longer routes around the globe and can only fit into a handful of ports. In case of crude oil carriers, there is also the question of maximum environm…

Worldwide we have plenty of merchant ships. Taking a few out of operation has no significant impact.

Re: Gigantism is a never-ending temptation

#26

Post by dragontamer » Sun, Dec 26, 2021, 3:25 AM UTC

credit_guy wrote: post #24

dragontamer wrote: post #18

1940s era Battleships are probably unnecessary gigantism, but it should be noted that the 'massive' ironclads of the 1890s were completely obsolete by the much bigger, heavily armored Dreadnoughts. (The battleships of 1890s were too small and impractical, leading to the development of the 1900s era bigger ships) The only reason Super-Battleships of the 1940s didn't work was because aircraft carriers were better. When…

> See Bismark vs HMS Hood Bismark was not meaningfully bigger than HMS Hood. According to wikipedia, Bismark had a full load displacement of 50300 tons vs 47430 tons for Hood. Both ships had eight 15 inch guns.

320mm armor for Bismark vs 305mm (thickest) to 160mm armor for the HMS Hood.

Bismark was nearly 20 years newer with a far more efficient design.

Even then, the extra 3000 tons of armor makes a difference.