Unsewn passage of Roman architecture . Class 10 Book name - Bravia
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The word science is derived from the Latin word scientia which means 'knowledge'. For the Romans, science was a collection of observations, the source of which they credited to the work of the gods. The Romans were largely contented to accumulate the knowledge of others in books and writings and to give it practical application to benefit human life. We call this applied science. The Romans would be the builders, the city planners and the engineers. Their accomplishments would leave an enduring mark on the horizons of Rome and most of the
The word science is derived from the Latin word scientia which means 'knowledge'. For the Romans, science was a collection of observations, the source of which they credited to the work of the gods. The Romans were largely contented to accumulate the knowledge of others in books and writings and to give it practical application to benefit human life. We call this applied science. The Romans would be the builders, the city planners and the engineers. Their accomplishments would leave an enduring mark on the horizons of Rome and most of the world.
Monuments to the Roman builders can be seen throughout the city of Rome. The Ponte Milvo, a bridge that once rang to the clang of Roman legions on the march 2,400 years ago, now carries joggers, strollers and bikers across the Tiber river. Just down the street stands the Colosseum, an amphitheatre built late in the first century AD as an arena for Roman games. The Pantheon, the Roman temple to the gods and still the widest dome in the world, is an awesome sight to visitors. Across the valleys and over the hills of Rome, there is a trail of broken arches. They are the remains of an aqueduct that carried fresh spring water to the residents of Rome.
What was the secret of the Roman engineers' monumental achievements? One answer was their recognition of the possibilities of the arch. The arch may appear to be simply a beautiful, elegant decoration. But the arch also has the kind of strength needed to span long distances and enclose larger areas. The arch was conceived by the Egyptians and Greeks. They discovered that wedge-shaped stones formed into an arch exerted two opposing forces that cancelled out each other. Thus, the stones supported each other. The Romans also discovered a way to make a very strong concrete, a material invented by the Egyptians. Concrete is a mixture of powdered lime and water to which sand and stone are added. They found a large deposit of sandlike volcanic ash that, when added to lime paste, formed a concrete as hard as natural rock.
Now the Roman builders had a design and a strong material that would enable them to become master bridge builders. A series of arches built in a riverbed formed the foundation of a bridge. The arches were held up by large, square, upright supports or piers built into the river bed. The engineers found that too many large piers obstructed the flow of the water. The Romans used larger arches and therefore fewer piers to solve the problem. Many Roman bridges constructed over main rivers still stand today.
Aqueducts are concrete-walled channels supported by tall arches. They carried water from the streams in the Apennine Mountains 15 miles east of the city. A system very much like the water distribution system used today, transported the water from the aqueducts to various parts of the city. Surging in from the mountains, the water flowed into the holding tanks, where sand and rocks were allowed to settle before being piped to different parts of the city.
The excellent Roman highway system was built mainly to enable the army to move quickly. Roman roads are sometimes called 'walls lying on their sides' because they are so well-built. The roads, made of four or five layers of sand, gravel, cement and stone are four times as thick as our modern roads and anywhere from 6 to 20 feet wide. Roman builders also changed the horizon of many cities, filling the edges that met the sky with soaring domes and graceful arches.
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