828 meters. That is the height of the record 150-storey
Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates,
the tallest construction ever built, the tallest building in the world. For those who have never seen
such a grandiose structure, it is perhaps quite difficult to even imagine the
entire scale of such an architectural masterpiece. However, this building is
not at the limit of our capabilities. Try now to imagine a building whose
windows open out into space, perhaps where the Moon almost seems
closer than the shopping center located next door! Perhaps we can go a
little further...try to imagine a skyscraper with a billion floors! How one could
actually bring this insane idea into the realm of reality, Ill tell you just a little
later. the meantime, I want to first introduce you
to another giant structure, with a billion floors! which in the near future may just break the record of the Burj
Khalifa. Burj
Khalifa. This is the Shimizu Mega-City Pyramid
A 240 storey tall project which is being actively developed
by Japanese architects. In its
design, it somewhat resembles the futuristic headquarters of the Tyrell
Corporation from the much beloved cult sci-fi film Blade Runner .
The size of the structure will be 14 times larger than
the pyramid at Cheops. It will consists of 204 smaller pyramid
constructions, each of which is equal in area to the huge Luxor Hotel in Las
Vegas. Despite the greater number of floors, the
Shimizu pyramid will be slightly shorter than the Burj Khalifa - just
730 meters. But it compensates
for this with its impressive size in general, and its ability to accommodate
an astounding over 1 million people. Now this project may seem a tad ambitious,
but architects are already dreaming about even greater super-constructions. You might ask: would it
even be possible for anyone ever to create a super building with a billion
floors? Of course, nothing prevents you from endlessly
laying a brick on a brick on a brick, or mounting one section
over another, and so on. But the
higher a building rises, the greater the headache it becomes for the builders. First of all, the force of the structure pushes
down with ever greater pressure on itself the taller and
therefore heavier it is. Meaning: If
you do not create some kind of a heavy-duty foundation, the upper part will
become too massive for the lower to support, and the entire structure will
collapse, flattening into a pancake. According to the calculations of one of
the creators of the Burj Khalifa, one William Baker, a skyscraper with a
height of 8,849 meters - a little over 10 times the height of the Burj Khalifa -
would need to be built on a base of approximately 4.1 thousand square
kilometers. This height was chosen as it is one meter
higher than the tallest mountain peak above sea level on the planet
- and that is, of course, Mount Everest. The area at the base for such a structure
would have to be about equal to the area of Polynesia. However, it is quite very much more than
difficult to prepare a site of that kind for such a huge foundation. This is
because such a ginormous, Bunyonesque foundation to be constructed,
the area covered would most likely be spotted and crisscrossed by
waterways, and perhaps even contain mountains or valleys. If this normal-
style foundation were abbreviated in the slightest, the building built atop it
would fold like a house of cards. But William Baker proposes another
possibility: building skyscrapers around a smaller but yet still powerful
central core, which could then support numerous columns, which in turn
support the building. In this way the foundation could be significantly
narrowed. If one were to construct a building using
this “pedestal” method, and if one were to still use a base of 4 thousand
square kilometers in area, according to the Baker method, it can hypothetically
rise to an astounding 59 thousand meters in height...or about 6
and two thirds times taller than Mount Everest. That’s approximately 10 thousand floors...give
or take a floor or two. True, even with a terrifically strong foundation,
to build such a skyscraper would not be easy in any way, shape, or form. At that height, hurricanes
force winds are frequent and troublesome. They would blow against the
sides of the structure and create powerful and possibly deadly turbulence. They could rock the building back and forth
during storms, making the structure somewhat dangerous to live in. In fact, the whole building could
potentially be blown over. To avoid such difficulties, it is proposed
that skyscrapers be built in a more streamlined
fashion, so that they will be less damaged by whirlwinds, hurricanes and tornados. A circular shape, an
oval, a triangle, and a rhombus with rounded corners have all been
proposed, all of which would work better than a square. Also needed: super
strong and highly resistant meta-materials. Perhaps the new and quite
innovative transparent aluminum could be used. This amazing stuff is three
times stronger than steel, and see through to boot. Or maybe
nanomaterials, as some of them, according to scientists, are almost
completely impossible to destroy. But even after having built an uber-
building from such exotic stuff, you will still probably stress your noggin to
the breaking point over the interminable problem of the elevators. Conventional elevators tend to occupy way
too much space, and in such an uber-building there would be almost no space
left for anything BUT elevator shafts. However, the latest developments in the design
and creation of super-compact and ultra-fast catapult elevators
might save the day. There
is also a promising idea regarding flying up and down on the exterior of the
building using industrial strength balloons. I’ll believe it when I see it. Lets say the engineers are able to solve such
problems and overcome the milestone of 10 thousand floors. Now let us try to mentally climb higher and
build a megascraper of 100 thousand floors. The top of this architectural
extravaganza will reach near-Earth space. And suddenly it will be right in
the middle of a microgravity dumping ground, full of debris from space
stations, probes, comets, and asteroids. Already, according to NASA
estimates, about 170 million remnants of satellites rotate here, from tiny
little specks to fairly large hunks and chunks of broken up machinery. And
to top it off, the speed of many of these objects reaches a deadly 56
thousand km/h - something like the speed of a bullet fired from a
Kalashnikov assault rifle. Scientists are promising to have this area
swept clean of debris in the near future. They have already tested something
called the “RemoveDEBRIS” device, a kind of high technology space
harpoon with a net, which during testing did manage to
gather quite a good catch of space rubbish. And experts from the Surrey
Space Center created a model of an orbital vacuum cleaner
with a kind of sail, capable - they say - of carrying out the
general cleaning of all of near-Earth space. So then, theoretically anyway,
we will be able to continue building our super-duper ultra-skyscraper
without fearing that a hunk of a satellite or wayward piece of leftover rocket
will destroy the entire thing in an instant. So, if we put one hundred mega-scrapers, each
with a height of 100 thousand floors, on top of each other, then
we get a mega-mega building with 10 million floors. And then if we build another 100 of those
mega-mega buildings on top of each other, then...finally,
we will have our giga-scraper with a total of one billion floors. Alas, according to the calculations of
specialists, there is barely enough material and energy in the entire world
to fashion even half of such a giga-scraper construction. For this we need
the resources of other celestial bodies. Judging by the rapid pace of
development of science and technology, according to some forecasts, this
will be do-able in the coming centuries. At that time then, finally, perhaps, it
will be possible to encapsulate a star with a swarm of energy gathering
satellites, whereupon we can consume as much energy as our hearts
desire. The building materials could be borrowed from
any other resource- rich nearby planets and asteroids. And finally, a skyscraper will appear with
a billion floors, which, most likely, won’t be just a building, or even a city,
but something like an entire world unto itself. It could be enveloped in a
flexible shell filled with an artificial atmosphere, and lit by the light of a man-
made sun. Inside their different sectors, people will
ride on supersonic elevators, and between different sections
- on some type of aircraft or even spacecraft. But at the apex of our Giga-scraper will be
the Moon itself, and our Lunar companion could even crash into our structure
if we aren’t careful. So, we
will have to protect our Giga-floor-building from our eternal night light with,
say, a protective grid. Or we might even have to remove our satellite
a bit from the Earth to some safe distance a tad
farther away. Still, the main
problem with our building will be its incredibly price. It will probably cost
hundreds of trillions of dollars, which is quite a lot. With this amount of money, we could alternatively give each inhabitant
of the planet a lump sum payment in the millions of dollars, or
even rent a fleet of dozens of huge space ships. No one really wants super tall buildings if
they have to pay for most of it out of their own pockets. But what if one day, say, some
global catastrophe, cataclysm, or epidemic drove everyone to have to hide
together in the same building? Lets see if our giga-skyscraper could
shelter all of humanity. Now on our planet we have a population of
about 7,600,000,000 people. According to some calculations, ten people
of average height and weight can stand on one square meter. So, a square with sides 28 kilometers long,
giving it an area of 784 square kilometers, could accommodate the entire
population of the Earth. This is slightly larger than the total area
of New York City. Many experts are quite confident that a building
the size of a city could be built today. However, to fit everyone on Earth into this
structure, they would have to stand shoulder to shoulder,
and back to face with all of their neighbors. To live under such conditions is, of course,
impossible. We
do not want to be packed into such a building like sardines in a can - or
monkeys in a barrel, as it were. According to UN and UNESCO standards,
an average person needs a space of at least 30 square meters to live
anywhere near a normal lifestyle. And we will need space to accommodate
communications, common and ancillary facilities, and et cetera. Then, if we
consider that roughly 500 people can be comfortably accommodated on
one floor in a modern skyscraper, then a little more than 15 million of these
will be needed for all of the present inhabitants of the Earth. So then, with a
billion floors, there will be more than enough space for stadiums, parks,
artificial lakes and ponds, recreation areas, and all the other various spaces
you can think of. In time, if such a situation came to pass,
we would even have enough room for a small alien civilization
to move in with us, if need be. If you want to know more about the incredible
buildings and amazing constructions of the future, don’t miss
a single one of our videos! Now
move that mouse and give us a thumbs up! And be sure to click on the bell
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stuff ahead...coming soon to the Ridddle channel near you!
Too flashy
'Or by playing Raid: Shadow Legends' and I immediately stopped watching.
Is a building like this even fiesibly possible?