The Giza Power Plant Read Online Free

years, and each improvement has redefined the state of the art, and with it, our lives. These improvements are not designated to just one area, and many times an improvement or a discovery in a particular science has enabled other professions to advance. As a result, a balance is maintained between the sciences; and in climbing the ladder of technological progress, one area of science may install a rung with which another may climb higher.
    We are not unduly amazed when confronted with a display of our own society's technological advancements, for in viewing the end product, we are aware to some degree of the technology employed in its creation. For instance, as we stroll through our climate-controlled shopping malls, we take for granted the use of advanced machines and the high-tech methods of manufacturing and construction that make them possible. But if we were completely unaware of the techniques and machinery used to build such a complex, we would undoubtedly be stupefied as to how it came into being.
    This bewilderment has affected many students of ancient cultures, particularly of Egypt, because we have been taught that the only means of construction available to the builders of the Great Pyramid were manpower, ropes, and tools of copper, stone, and wood. As researchers attempt to reconstruct—in their minds, on paper, and sometimes even physically—the achievements of these ancient, technologically "primitive" builders, they are amazed at the lack of correlation between what they see rising from the desert floor and what they "know" to be history.
    Many theorists, unable to reconcile the rift between accepted theory and the fact of these magnificent structures resort to supernatural theories to explain who built the Great Pyramid and how. They surmise that:
the Great Pyramid was built by super beings who came to Earth from another planet.
the Great Pyramid was built through divine inspiration.
the Great Pyramid was placed on Earth, completely intact, by the hand of God.
    Still other researchers and authors of books about the Great Pyramid speculate that it embodies an ancient and lost science. They subscribe to the belief that the practitioners of this science built the pyramid as testimony to the knowledge they had developed and because they believed in the prophecy of a future cataclysmic event. David Davidson, a structural engineer from Leeds, England, theorized that the Great Pyramid is similar to a time capsule left by some fantastic civilization for the benefit of a future generation that possesses the ability to unlock its secrets and reap the benefit of the knowledge stored there.
    In my view, however, the Great Pyramid reveals too much practical experience and technological knowledge on the part of its builders to suggest that they suddenly diverged onto a path of symbolism and occultism. If indeed we benefit through our study of the Great Pyramid, perhaps realizing that the ancient Egyptians were very advanced, then these more speculative theories might have some basic truth to them. As an engineer, however, I am mindful that
our
civilization's major construction projects are not financed on the collateral of some future generation thousands of years hence, but are built to serve the needs of today's society. It is likely that some of our larger construction projects would survive a world catastrophe and last for several thousand years. For example, if a disturbance around the globe returned us all to the Stone Age, the Hoover Dam, a colossal construction project of modern times, would be viewed with awe if the science and technology that were needed to build it had been lost to everyone. This dam, and others like it around the world, was not built to serve some far distant civilization, but to fill a need at the present time. Financing was provided on the basis that there would be some return on the money invested in it. It seems logical to assume, therefore, that the builders of the Great Pyramid,