Towering Beauty

My son, Wynston (age 11) is bursting at the seams to have me blog about his latest wooden puzzle creation -- The Eiffel Tower.

I asked him if he knew where it is located and he did not answer correctly. In walks his brother, Avery (age 9) and says, "in Paris, France". I asked how he knew the answer and he said, "from the movie Rush Hour 3". Got to love those Jackie Chan movies -- educational too!!


So off we go to exploring information and here is what we found at Corrosion-Doctors online:

The Eiffel Tower was built for the International Exhibition of Paris of 1889 commemorating the centenary (100 years) of the French Revolution. The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII of England, opened the tower. Of the 700 proposals submitted in a design competition, Gustave Eiffel's was unanimously chosen.


Some Interesting Tidbits:

15,000 iron pieces (excluding rivets)

40 tons of paint

1652 steps to the top

2.5 million rivets

300 steel workers, and 2 years (1887-1889) to construct it

In 1889, Gustave Eiffel began to fit the peak of the tower as an observation station to measure the speed of wind. He also encouraged several scientific experiments including Foucault's giant pendulum, a mercury barometer and the first experiment of radio transmission.

After Gustave Eiffel experiments in the field of meterology, he begun to look at the effects of wind and air resistance, the science that would later be termed aerodynamics, which has become a large part of both military and commercial aviation as well as rocket technology.