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How tall can a Lego tower get?

bbc.co.uk

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Re: How tall can a Lego tower get?

#3
I'm a little confused. That's the weight that a single Lego brick can withstand, correct? So assuming you made a "tower" that was essentially a vertical line of 2x2 Lego bricks, it'd collapse after 3,591m.

But that's not how we build towers. If you create a proper foundation with Lego bricks and distribute the weight evenly across them, and taper the tower as it goes up, am I wrong in assuming it could go a lot more than that? The entire weight of a structure never rests on a single brick...

Re: How tall can a Lego tower get?

#4

I'm a little confused. That's the weight that a single Lego brick can withstand, correct? So assuming you made a "tower" that was essentially a vertical line of 2x2 Lego bricks, it'd collapse after 3,591m. But that's not how we build towers. If you create a proper foundation with Lego bricks and distribute the weight evenly across them, and taper the tower as it goes up, am I wrong in assuming it could go a lot more…

Yeah that had me slightly puzzled, you'd never attempt a tower with so few bricks as the stability would see it topple over quite quickly.

Re: How tall can a Lego tower get?

#5

I'm a little confused. That's the weight that a single Lego brick can withstand, correct? So assuming you made a "tower" that was essentially a vertical line of 2x2 Lego bricks, it'd collapse after 3,591m. But that's not how we build towers. If you create a proper foundation with Lego bricks and distribute the weight evenly across them, and taper the tower as it goes up, am I wrong in assuming it could go a lot more…

You are right but I'd prefer to have this answer as you can predict the maximum height of the tower that you designed using this. Also, a question that accounts for complex towers, would not be a question about legos much, I think.

Re: How tall can a Lego tower get?

#8
This seems to simulate the pressure due to the weight of the bricks, but I wonder how much the height comes down by if you factor in the extra pressure you have to put on the top brick to get it to clip on.

Does this add non-negligibly to the pressure on the bottom brick, or is it almost nothing once dispersed through the whole tower?

(You may be able to tell that I have very little knowledge of the physical sciences, so apologies if this is a stupid question!)

Re: How tall can a Lego tower get?

#9

I'm a little confused. That's the weight that a single Lego brick can withstand, correct? So assuming you made a "tower" that was essentially a vertical line of 2x2 Lego bricks, it'd collapse after 3,591m. But that's not how we build towers. If you create a proper foundation with Lego bricks and distribute the weight evenly across them, and taper the tower as it goes up, am I wrong in assuming it could go a lot more…

You are correct, 3.5 Km is the maximum height only when building towers with constant horizontal cross section.

Re: How tall can a Lego tower get?

#10
If you're curious about the engineering that goes into a large Lego structure, James May ("Captain Slow" of Top Gear fame) built an entire house out of Legos. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR2YqMrS_pM It's an hour long story, but if you want to skip to the final product: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR2YqMrS_pM#t=2600s
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