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Engineering Wonders Videos | Interting Engineering Original Videos

Palm Islands are true engineering wonders. There are lots of discussions about them sinking or not. Are they really sinking? Let's find out!

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The three Palm Islands off the coast of Dubai are true marvels of modern engineering. Despite being built on top of water and sand, they have also housed thousands of residents since they were constructed in the early 2000s.But rumors and discussions that these artificial, man-made islands may be sinking have surfaced, alarming people around the world. Not an ideal scenario for local residents and business owners, let alone for the engineers and designers who worked on these impressive projects.A closer look into one of the islands’ current state, called the Palm Jumeirah, has taken place to uncover the reality of how it is faring today, with a focus on how it was initially built.The size of 800 football fields, the Palm Jumeirah, with its iconic palm tree shape, is a mammoth island network that has a capacity of up to 120,000 people. No wonder questions about its capacity to stay above water have arisen. Originally built with all-natural materials from local sources, the island required 24 million pounds (94 million m3) of sand during its construction. On top of that, a 6.8-mile-long (11km) crescent-shaped breakwater surrounding the entire island was placed to protect it from wave damage and to prevent sand erosion caused by the “shamal” winds. Add in the one million tons (5.5 million m3) of blasted rocks, as well as 263 billion gallons (1.2 billion m3) of dredged-up sand used to create the island, and you have the Palm Jumeirah’s foundation.Building anything on top of loose sand is a challenge because of liquefaction. This phenomenon becomes an issue when earthquakes move sand particles, pushing water upwards, and causing the island to sink below water levels. But the Palm Jumeirah’s engineers foresaw this issue and consolidated the millions of pounds of sand using a vibratory compaction method called “vibro compaction” that made the sand firm enough to build on. Finally, the engineers of the project also considered the 19 inches (50 cm) rise in sea levels in case of climate change and the possibility of rising waters.Essentially, the islands shouldn’t be going anywhere. But a ground surveying company called Fugro NPA stated the islands were being submerged by under 13/64 inches (5mm) each year. Denying these claims, a Dubai government-owned real estate company called Nakheel said that “any settlement of the ground, even as little as 5mm, would generate obvious physical manifestations including masonry cracking, leaking pipes, broken windows, and so forth.”So far, there have been no detected cracks, leaks, or broken glass on the islands, causing engineers to believe the islands are as good as new and not shifting beneath water any time soon.

The three Palm Islands off the coast of Dubai are true marvels of modern engineering.

Palm Islands are true engineering wonders.

Are the Palm Islands sinking?

Can the Three Gorges Dam in China slow the Earth's rotation?

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If we are talking about size, this dam would definitely be humongous. Well, that&#39;s just for the size, as there are far more interesting and controversial things behind the Three Gorges Dam in China.This dam is actually the largest in the world. The Three Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric dam that spans the Yangtze River, the longest river in Asia. Aside from this, it is also the world&#39;s largest concrete structure.Think about hitting two birds with one stone but here it would be two records with one huge dam. The dam was envisioned in 1919 by former politician Sun Yat-sen during The International Development of China, but construction didn&#39;t happen until it was approved by the National People&#39;s Congress in 1994. The Three Gorges Dam is 1.4 miles (2.2 km) long and 607 ft (180 m) above sea level. Such a large structure required 27.2 million cubic meters of concrete and 463000 tons of steel. This amount is already enough to build around 63 Eiffel towers. It took 17 years with 40,000 people working on the dam, which is estimated to cost around 37 billion dollars. Once operational, it can produce 22,500 MW of energy powered by the 32 6000-ton generators installed. This amount is comparable to the amount needed to run 15 nuclear reactors, which is enough for 60 million people!Aside from this, the dam has a large reservoir that covers approximately 405 square miles (1048.95 km2). It can protect millions of people downstream by holding the Yangtze river at bay during the flood season. Additionally, the dam claimed to reduce 1.4 million tons of carbon dioxide, 4.3 million tons of acid nitrate, and 800 thousand tons of hydrogen sulfide. However, every good thing comes with a price, as there are negative reactions raised concerning the impacts of the dam. Early into its construction, around a million people were forced to relocate, and it flooded 13 cities. It also affects the wildlife and ecosystem of the areas near its location, and that&#39;s not the end of it.The Three Gorges Dam is claimed to be slowing the Earth&#39;s rotation! The huge capacity of the dam can hold 42 billion tons of water at maximum. NASA scientists believe that this shift has an impact on Earth. This amount of water positioned 5 feet 10 inches (177 cm) above sea level slows the Earth&#39;s rotation by increasing its moment of inertia. The results? Possibly longer days and nights, according to physics, and increased body weight due to less centrifugal force.

This happens when the dam raises trillions of pounds of water 574 feet (175 m) above sea level increasing the Earth’s moment of inertia and thus slowing its rotation.

Three Gorges Dam: This Dam affected Earth’s Rotation

Hurricanes don't have to be a disruptive thing. They can be a source of tremendous energy. How? Let's see!

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Hurricanes are huge destructive forces of nature. It can greatly devastate any location that is situated in its path. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina left several cities and states in the U.S. with damages up to hundred and eight billion dollars, making it into the list of the costliest and most damaging hurricanes in history. Fueled by warm ocean waters, hurricanes bring powerful winds alongside heavy rainfall and thunderstorms. The Atlantic hurricane season in 2021 brought eleven hurricanes with winds of at least 74 mph (119 kph).With that said, one might ask: “How powerful are hurricanes?”A hurricane passing by will definitely cancel the day and leave a lot of damage behind.  Depending on the level or category type, affected places can experience a lot, from moderate rainfalls to winds powerful enough to uproot some trees.If compared with a nuclear bomb, NASA states that the average hurricane can create energy that is equivalent to the explosion of 10,000 nuclear bombs!With such power and energy, another question arises: “ Can this be used to power up cities?”The answer is a definite yes. The Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory stated that the energy generated by a typical hurricane is 1.5 terawatts, and that is just for the wind. Hurricanes also release energy through clouds and rain, which amounts to 600 terawatts, which is more than enough!That amount is already equivalent to 200 times the worldwide electrical generating capacity, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hurricane expert Christopher Landsea.The only remaining question, or problem, is how? Hurricanes are very powerful, and the amount of energy they can produce would definitely be useful. However, the forces are so intense that it actually destroys the structures that were actually made for harnessing energy from the wind. Wind turbines need to have a solid foundation that can withstand the destructive nature of hurricanes while performing their purpose of harnessing energy from the powerful wind blasts it brings. Scientists and engineers around the world are working on ways to make this happen.The founder of Japanese energy firm Challenergy, Atsushi Shimizu, built a streamlined design for turbines with vertical blades situated in the upper and lower platforms to withstand storms in Japan. Although there are more things needed to achieve this goal, the world is hopeful that we will be able to harness energy from hurricanes in the near future. After all,  a hurricane wouldn&#39;t be renowned for its power if it wasn&#39;t difficult to harness the enormous quantity of energy it produces.

Hurricanes are huge destructive forces of nature. It can greatly devastate any location that is situated in its path.

“How powerful are hurricanes?”

Could Hurricanes be the Answer to Our Energy Problems?

“The Line” — a 40-foot-tall, 650-foot-wide futuristic desert city — traversable from one end to the other in 20 minutes and housing nine million people. What is this place? 

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“The Line” — a 40-foot-tall, 650-foot-wide futuristic desert city — traversable from one end to the other in 20 minutes and housing nine million people. What is this place? A project that was projected to cost 500 billion dollars, but recent accounts say it’s now more like 1 trillion dollars. The Line can be found in Saudi Arabia and is part of their NEOM Project. The city is projected to run entirely on renewable energy.The city will be free from roads and boasts a high-speed train from one end to the other. Citizens will be able to walk just five minutes to reach social centers and will happily enjoy a zero-emissions lifestyle.This futuristic city will be structured on three different levels. Level one will have parks filled with trees and parks for walking. The second level will be for shopping and other business properties. The third level will be the high-speed transit system.AI will also be a feature within this line city to make the lives of residents easier, and it is planning to be the first city with more robots than humans! All of this does, of course, raise some questions. The desert can get up to 131 degrees Fahrenheit - and the mirror wall reflects the light, creating high heat zones that will fry anything that comes into its path. Doesn’t exactly sound ideal. How will the city be cooled? Will the roof be open as it is in the renderings? If so, how do they plan to keep it at a livable temperature?Despite all the millions of questions this prospective city brings up, they have already begun construction. There are two more regions planned for the NEOM Project. Oxagon will be a hexagonal shape on the coast of the Red Sea and is planned to have the first fully autonomous port logistics system.   The third region, Trojena, will be built in the mountains. They tout Trojena as a place of &#39; experience’ — where nature and architecture will be intertwined, and will host many events, such as music festivals, and will have skiing and other outdoor activities. So, what do you think? Are you intrigued? Would you be willing to live in one of NEOM’s three regions? Let’s see what will happen when The LIne is complete.

“The Line” — a 40-foot-tall, 650-foot-wide futuristic desert city — traversable from one end to the other in 20 minutes and housing nine million people.

Will ''The Line'' Be a Place to Live in the Future

DNA editing has been a hotly contested debate among scientists and the public for decades.

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DNA editing has been a hotly contested debate among scientists and the public for decades. While this advancement in science may bring us some great advantages, many argue it is not ethical to mess around with our DNA.Genome editing has come a long way and could do a lot to improve human health. Using the gene-editing technique on human embryos could help babies become resistant to certain heritable diseases and disorders. How is this done? With the technology called CRISPR-CAS9. Using this technology, a portion of DNA is clipped, and a new piece of DNA is added to the cut; the cells&#39; repair system then uses this as a patch. Targeting a faulty gene that causes hemophilia and replacing it with a normal one is just one example of this. As CRISPR-CAS9 is inexpensive and convenient, research on genetic structure modification has greatly accelerated, making it possible to one day be able to remove harmful mutations from the gene pool.According to a 2019 study, the hazards connected to genetic engineering have significantly decreased, and people are beginning to demand human embryos benefit from this genetic enhancement technology. Advocates of genome editing argue that the only way of preventing genetic disorders is to manipulate the DNA.However, most of the scientific community still believes it is unethical, and people would abuse this technology, creating what is known as designer babies. Genome editing could exponentially change medical treatments and the quality of people&#39;s lives — but at what cost? It also has the potential to reduce human diversity, in turn increasing social inequalities. While genetic engineering could have many advantages, seeing what could be done with it if it landed in the wrong hands is frightening.

While this advancement in science may bring us some great advantages, many argue it is not ethical to mess around with our DNA.

Is editing the DNA of an unborn child ethical or unethical?

The Engineering Failures that Sent Titanic to the Bottom of the Atlantic

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The Engineering Failures that Sent Titanic to the Bottom of the AtlanticWhen it was unveiled in 1912, the Titanic was one of the biggest engineering wonders of its time. No one could have guessed it would have sunk on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. There was so much faith in it that it was nicknamed the unsinkable ship! But even the slightest miscalculation is enough to make a giant “unsinkable” ship sink. The Titanic had 16 watertight compartments designed to quickly close in an emergency and to keep the ship afloat for up to 10 hours after a collision, plus it was built with all the latest technologies of its time.However, the 882-foot (269 m) British luxury passenger liner sank to the bottom of the ocean in just three fateful hours on April 14, 1912. After closer inspection, numerous flaws in its design surfaced.Firstly, the ship was designed to stay afloat after its first four compartments were breached. Unfortunately, the iceberg it hit damaged the fifth compartment. Not a design flaw, just an extremely unlucky circumstance. Regardless, the ship was built to slow down the sinking with its 16 watertight compartments. Engineering design flaw #1: These compartments were not tall enough. To keep such large amounts of pressured water from spilling into other compartments, the watertight ones should have gone up to the A or even the C deck, but they only went up to the E deck.The doors separating these compartments were built to close and block the water. They were made of steel and mounted to each other with rivets. The calculations should have considered the amount of stretching that would happen once immense pressure was placed on the doors. Instead, when faced with such a force, the rivets broke off as they couldn’t stretch enough, allowing water to pour through.The same issue happened to the wrought iron rivets that fastened the hull plates to the ship’s main structure. These also couldn’t handle the water pressure. On top of that, manufacturers used a high amount of sulphur during the Titanic’s hull construction, which in turn made the steel very fragile. Ultimately, this may have led to the hull fracturing more easily.Tragically, a combination of bad luck and engineering mistakes led to the Titanic’s demise and to over 1,500 people losing their lives on that fateful night. The Titanic’s sister ships were heavily modified using this new knowledge, and engineers worldwide learned valuable lessons on how to build giant ships so that future giant ships wouldn’t sink.

Tragically, a combination of bad luck and engineering mistakes led to the Titanic’s demise and to over 1,500 people losing their lives on that fateful night

What are the differences between 1G through 5G? What does it all mean?

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Since the very inception of 5G, it has been rife with controversy. Scientists have stated contradictory views and studies on how our health will be affected by the latest innovation in high-speed internet. With all this confusion, it’s difficult to understand if 5G is a positive step forward or detrimental to our health. Perhaps it’s both.What exactly is 5G? What are the differences between 1G through 5G? What does it all mean? The G actually stands for Generation, and the number in front is the signal strength of the internet - ‘gigabits.’ The first ‘G’ — 1G made it possible for mobile phones to communicate with each other in the form of analog dialogue.  Then came 2G, which brought us digital audio. This changed our audio from analog to digital.3G really changed everything as it enabled us to browse the internet, share images, and send emails. Even though this was just a short time ago, it’s hard to even remember a time when this was not possible. 3G was an amazing step forward for technology. 4G delivered us into the age of broadband. After the introduction of broadband, security improved greatly, multimedia services and internet providers reduced their prices, and we were graced with cloud services - offering us seemingly endless storage capacity for all our photos, documents, and files.This is all pretty incredible, especially when we think of how quickly it was developed. However, people wanted more, faster, cheaper internet with better connectivity.In response, 5G was developed, which promises to deliver on customer demands. And boy, is it fast. The time it takes for information to get from one device to another is less than one millisecond — that’s fast! The 4.5G most of us use today provides one gigabyte of speed — 5G will be 10 gigabytes of speed per second! That’s an amazing difference.So, how did they get it so fast? Well, 5G generates electromagnetic radiation, creating an electromagnetic field. Due to this high frequency, the internet is able to work must faster. This high speed will also make it possible for your car to be driven remotely and even for surgical operations to be performed remotely! Just think of the possibilities for the future.However, this super-fast development has some a bit nervous and even fearful of its consequences. 
The primary concern? You guessed it — radiation. And as we know, too much exposure to radiation can greatly impact the health of all living things. With the shorter wavelengths generated by 5G, more cell towers will be necessary to transmit that high-speed internet. In order to transfer all that speedy internet, there will need to be a wireless antenna every 492.13 feet! Pretty much everywhere we look! Yikes! So, will the benefits of 5G outweigh the negatives? The debate rages on, and it looks like we’ll have to wait a bit longer in order to answer that question.

Internet service prices have dropped, security has improved, and cloud systems have entered our lives.That is why they began developing 5G?

Engineering Wonders

EPISODES

Are the Palm Islands sinking?

EPISODE 1

Three Gorges Dam: This Dam affected Earth’s Rotation

EPISODE 2

Could Hurricanes be the Answer to Our Energy Problems?

EPISODE 3

Will ''The Line'' Be a Place to Live in the Future

EPISODE 5

Is editing the DNA of an unborn child ethical or unethical?

EPISODE 6

The Engineering Failures that Sent Titanic to the Bottom of the Atlantic

EPISODE 8

Is 5G Technology Really Dangerous For Our Health?

EPISODE 9