Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
1
D
EVELOPING
AND
D
ESIGNING
N
EW
C
HEMICALS
AND
M
ATERIALS
In the fairy tale
Jack and the Beanstalk,
magical beans produce a stalk that
grows tall enough for a young man to climb all the way into the sky. Jack
encounters a giant and, aft er some trickery, ends up with the giant's gold—
at least in some versions of the tale. Th e story is clever and interesting,
particularly the part about a beanstalk extending into space.
Th is old idea of a structure that attains phenomenal height has gained
much interest lately. As a way of reaching space, a tower would be safer
and more effi cient than rocket launches. But there is a perplexing prob-
lem—fi nding a material that can stand up to great heights. Even the stron-
gest steel would fail because a steel tower that high could not support its
own weight; steel is strong but heavy.
Height has always been diffi cult to attain because strong and sturdy
materials, such as stone, are heavy, and there is a limit to how much weight
they can bear before they collapse. At its original height of about 481 feet
(147 m), Cheops (Khufu) Pyramid (the Great Pyramid of Giza) was the
tallest building for nearly 4,000 years. (Th e pyramid's present height is 450
feet [137 m] due to erosion.) Th e tallest completed human-built structure
as of May 2009 is the CN Tower in Toronto, which is 1,815 feet (553 m)
1
