Tag: Rome

Ancient Roman Concrete’s Durability Finally Explained

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If you’ve ever seen the concrete in your house’s foundation or on your sidewalks start to crack and crumble after a few years then you might be interested to know that the answer to this sad situation exists in the 2,000 year old Roman Pantheon.  Apparently the Romans were better engineers than we are, at least as far as concrete goes.

Researchers at MIT have been studying the phenomenal longevity of Roman concrete edifices and they’ve discovered that using quick lime instead of slaked lime provides for the more reactive inclusions in the material to actually “self-heal” incipient cracks.

“The benefits of hot mixing are twofold,” Masic says. “First, when the overall concrete is heated to high temperatures, it allows chemistries that are not possible if you only used slaked lime, producing high-temperature-associated compounds that would not otherwise form. Second, this increased temperature significantly reduces curing and setting times since all the reactions are accelerated, allowing for much faster construction.”

Near the end of the article it’s stated that the researchers plan to commercialize the ancient technique.  Well, as a descendant of the Romans, I declare this cultural (or technical) appropriation.  And I demand reparations.  I’ve estimated my cut as approximately one billion denarii (silver of course).  If enough denarii can’t be found I will settle for gold doubloons.

16MAY2019 – American Greatness Post of the Day – Our Modern Satyricon – VDH

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Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist by training so it is perhaps unsurprising that he finds the analogies between Petronius’s Satyricon and the cultural rot of our own age.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/05/15/our-modern-satyricon/

But I still praise him for the accuracy of his point by point comparison.  Comparing the present age to post-republican Rome has become a common trope but Hanson points out just how accurate it is.  Nothing new here, just the scholarly expertise of the author pointing out the exactness of the analogy.

25AUG2018 – Quote of the Day

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“The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.”

Marcus Aurelius

 

Reading the Stoic quotes you could be tempted to think it all sounds too inhuman, too sterile.  But what I remember then is that Aurelius lived his creed and selflessly struggled to hold back the forces of entropy that were inexorably waiting for his death to pummel the seemingly invulnerable Roman Empire with the first of an endless series of blows that would eventually grind it dust.  A lesser man, like his son Commodus would abandon the grinding drudgery of defending the imperial frontier and devote himself to decadent pleasure while the world dissolved.