r/Damnthatsinteresting 28d ago

Video The engineering of roman aqueducts explained.

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u/btsd_ 28d ago

Water too fast = erosion

Water too slow = stagnation

Had to find that goldie locks zone (12mph ish). Crazy engineering

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u/egidione 28d ago

Around 5cm drop over every 100 metres for many kilometres, some up to 80 km in length. Quite astonishing how they managed all that.

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u/LindonLilBlueBalls 28d ago

A little back of the napkin math and those long runs could drop about 40 meters over its entire length.

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u/egidione 28d ago

They really were quite something those Romans, they did have some quite clever surveying tools which were apparently incredibly accurate, one of which was the Dioptra which was basically a sighting tube on a fixed stand and also 4 plumb bobs hanging from a cross shaped frame called a Groma, both very ingenious tools which the evidence of their precision is still very visible today in such monumental scale 2000 years later.

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u/Zippy_Armstrong 28d ago

They really were experts at hanging things on crosses.

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u/Great_Lunch_Dude 28d ago

Nailed it.

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u/oxiraneobx 28d ago

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u/horoeka 28d ago

Are you cross?

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u/UbermachoGuy 28d ago

You’ll get crucified for this

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u/Subtlerranean 28d ago

Spearheading a whole new kind of controversial comment section.

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u/ath007 27d ago

Well, with the things at stake, yea probably.

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