GERMAN Water Bridge

Even after you see it, it is still hard to believe.

Six years, 500 million euros, 918 meters long -- now this is engineering!

This is a channel-bridge over THE RIVER ELBE and joins the former East and West Germany, as part of the unification project. It's located in the city of Magdeburg, near Berlin.

The photo was taken on the day of inauguration.

To those who appreciate engineering projects, here's a puzzle for you armchair engineers and physicists.

QUESTION
Did the bridge have to be designed to withstand the additional weight of ship and barge traffic, or just the weight of the water?

ANSWER
It needed to be designed to withstand the weight of the WATER. A ship always displaces an amount of water that weighs the same as the ship, regardless of how heavily a ship may be loaded.

Remember your high school physics, and the fly in an enclosed bottle project?

Similarly, the super sensitive scale proved that it didn't make any difference whether the fly was sitting on the bottom, walking up the side, or flying around. The bottle, air, and fly were a single unit of mass and always weighed the same.

June Labay, thanks for the post.