The race to heights

The world is currently on a seemingly crazy rush of building the tallest buildings on earth. The very idea, though just a frenzy & fantasy to most, is undoubtedly the reflection of the relentless strive of every nation towards displaying its pride, wealth, commitment & technology. The last 15 years have seen a massive inrush of buildings on a scale that could never have been even imaginable before. And unsurprisingly, this list is growing rather exponentially, with approximately 9 skyscrapers over 500m under construction right away. Though none of these will even challenge the current leader, the Burj Al Khalifa, a few iconic structures  have been planned in the next few years that could put even the giant under shade.

     Countries with buildings in the top 200 and buildings 300 m or taller under construction     Countries with buildings in the top 200     Countries with buildings 300 m or taller under construction but no current buildings in the top 200

    Prince Charles  famously doesn't care for skyscrapers. He sees them as a vain attempt to assert  masculinity, like  a rock  star with a  cucumber down his trousers – or, as he puts it: "Trying  to make  them ever taller  than the other person's building is surely taking the commercial macho into the realms of adolescent lunacy". Phallic icons or not, we're about to move into a new era of mega-tall  buildings. George Efstathiou, a managing partner at the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, declares that "the age of the super-skyscrapers is starting again" . Considering the scale of the structures on the  way, he could well be right.

But how high can skyscrapers be? Is the sky the limit?
    

Burj Khalifa,  the tallest building in the world.

   David Scott, chairman of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitats (CTBUH) and principal at the New York-based engineering firm Arup, doesn't believe there is an absolute limit. "Mount Everest is essentially a pile of stone," he says. "You don't need a lot of technology to create it. Just a lot of money."Engineers and architects have always speculated about how tall skyscrapers could be. Frank Lloyd Wright designed a mile-high tower, the Illinois, to be built in Chicago. It was proposed in 1956. Most experts agree that the technology was there to build it at the time, but not the investment.But money isn't the only limiting factor. Elevator technology lags behind building technology, and one obvious issue is lift cables; if they had to raise a lift one mile, they would be far too heavy. In Burj Dubai, no elevator goes all the way from the ground to the top.There's also we frail humans to consider. If an express elevator – at speeds up to 25mph – went from the ground floor to the top, we could pass out due to changes in the air pressure.

Taipei 101, second

   Then there's the problem of building movement. Most skyscrapers can sway a few metres in the wind without tumbling down, but the people inside might feel uncomfortable, if not downright nauseous, especially on higher floors. So the tallest structures need sturdy central cores to anchor them. The Empire State Building in New York, and other skyscrapers of that time, had steel beams wrapped around their elevator shafts.The Burj Dubai has a "buttressed core", or concrete hub, with three wings spreading out to form a kind of tripod. When the wind blows against two of the wings, the third supports them. Taipei 101 has a 730-ton pendulum in the top of the building; the giant ball swings against the movement to keep the upper floors steady.

WFC, Shanghai, Third

More difficult are natural disasters, particularly earthquakes that could topple a skyscraper. In areas of high seismic activity, such as California, strict building-codes are in place to protect against earth tremors. The most common defence is to use mass dampers – essentially seismic shock absorbers – made of giant springs or hydraulic systems that move in the opposite direction to the earthquake's oscillations.And today, there's the threat of terrorism. Tall buildings are a target because they are iconic, and because they contain so many people. Lessons have been learnt from the attacks on the World Trade Centre, which led to the collapse of the towers. More internal supports make collapse far less likely. Stairwells are made wider to aid emergency evacuation, and ventilation systems force smoke out rather than letting it spread upwards, as if in a chimney.

ICC, Hong Kong, Fourth

Petronas Towers,Fifth

But the fact is that there are hazards everywhere in life. And most experts agree that the benefits of skyscrapers outweigh the downsides. Bill Baker, chief structural engineer at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, believes that building high is not only safe, but necessary to stop cities devouring green-belt land. "Urban density is good," he says. "Everyone uses public transportation, people walk to lunch. Look at the Sears Tower in Chicago. It has 4.4 million square feet – that's 100 acres on one city block."

David Scott of the CTBUH agrees. "If you look at the holistic impact of tall buildings on urban living, they offer many benefits," he says. "Not only do they reduce things like car ownership, but they can use waste heat in winter to warm them, and they have the potential to generate more open spaces at ground level, as well as reducing suburban sprawl. In the case of London, it can either expand outwards or upwards."But George Efstathiou, the architect, perhaps has the real reason for our love of skyscrapers: "Tall buildings are a matter of ego. Tall buildings are a sign of success."

The Imperial towers, Mumbai, Tallest in India

The tallest buildings on earth as on august 2010 

Willis tower,USA,sixth

    The non-profit, international organization Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) was formed in 1969 and announces the title of "The Worlds Tallest Building" and sets the standards by which buildings are measured. It maintains a list of the 100 tallest completed buildings in the world. The council currently ranks Burj Khalifa as the tallest at 828 m.The CTBUH only recognizes buildings that are complete, however, and some buildings listed within these list articles are not considered complete by the CTBUH.
   In 1996, as a response to the dispute as to whether the Petronas Towers or the Willis Tower was taller, the council listed and ranked buildings in four categories:

• height of structural or architectural top
• height of highest occupied floor
• height to the top of roof (removed as category in 2009)
• height to top of any part of the building.

On the race course

India tower

   Already a large number of buildings are on the way to completion, adding further chill to the competition. The tallest among these is in India, called the India Towers. Planned for completion in 2015, this Mumbai giant would become the second tallest in the world with a pinnacle height of 702m, only surpassed by Burj Khalifa. Mumbai has another project in the top 10, World One tower, which upon completion in 2013 would become the tallest residential building on earth. Fourth in the list is the Abraj Al Bait towers or the Mecca Royal Clock Tower. This complex , with its tallest tower standing at 601m, would house the tallest hotel on earth & have the largest floor area of all buildings. It will also house the largest clock on earth, dwarfing the Big Ben at five times its size, and would be visible from a whooping 25 kilometers away! Fifth in the list would be the One World Trade Center, at the site of the old WTC's, and would become the tallest in the Americas.

Up in the future

Mile high tower, Jeddah

   The future as always hold plenty, as man's aspire for heights continue to spear miles. The Mile-High Tower is a skyscraper proposed for construction in Jeddah,Saudi Arabia. At 1 mile (1,600m) tall, it would be the tallest building ever built. The US$13.6 billion project, the centerpiece of a planned community near the coast, is being proposed by Al-Waleed bin Talal’s Riyadh-based Kingdom Holding Company. But this gigantic project has already started experiencing problems such as soil stability & certain reports had suggested that it had been put on a hold, but the planners have put these rumors to a rest. This reminds of a much more ambitious project, not for the height, but for the time when it was planned. 

the Illinois

    The Mile High Illinois, Illinois Sky-City, or simply The Illinois was a proposed mile-high (1,609 meters) skyscraper, envisioned by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1956. The design, intended to be built in Chicago, would have included 528 stories, with a gross area of 18.46 million square feet. Had it been built, it would be the tallest building in the world. though this kind of  a project was technically feasible even then, a large number of constrains meant that it would never set into construction.
   Rumors have spread about even a 2 mile high tower (sky city), that not has yet been planned. But one things for sure - such projects will continue to rise as long as man survives..

References & more reading
1. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
2. The Independent: Article- Mile high tower wars : How tall is too tall? 

Hyperinflation - when banknotes lose their value

The 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollar banknote (10¹⁴ dollars), the largest
 banknote ever in terms of the number of zero's on it

   In economics, hyperinflation is inflation that is very high or "out of control", a condition in which prices increase rapidly as a currency loses its value. Definitions used by the media vary from a cumulative inflation rate over three years approaching 100% to "inflation exceeding 50% a month. As a rule of thumb, normal inflation is reported per year, but hyperinflation is often reported for much shorter intervals, often per month. Although there is a great deal of debate about the root causes of hyperinflation, it becomes visible when there is an unchecked increase in the money supply (or drastic debasement of coinage) usually accompanied by a widespread unwillingness to hold the money for more than the time needed to trade it for something tangible to avoid further loss. Hyperinflation is often associated with wars (or their aftermath), economic depressions, and political or social upheavals.

   

Sweeping up the banknotes from the street after
the Hungarian pengő was replaced in 1946 after
 the biggest inflation the world had ever faced

Germany, 1923: banknotes had lost so much
 value that they were used as wallpaper.

   
   Hyperinflation is generally associated with paper money because this can easily be used to increase the money supply: add more zeros to the plates and print, or even stamp old notes with new numbers.Historically there have been numerous episodes of hyperinflation in various countries, followed by a return to "hard money". Older economies would revert to hard currency and barter when the circulating medium became excessively devalued, generally following a "run" on the store of value.Hyperinflation effectively wipes out the purchasing power of private and public savings, distorts the economy in favor of extreme consumption and hoarding of real assets, causes the monetary base, whether specie or hard currency, to flee the country, and makes the afflicted area anathema to investment.

    The worst inflation occurred in Hungary  between the end of 1945 and July 1946. In 1944, the highest denomination was 1,000 pengő.  A special currency the adópengő - or tax pengő - was created for tax and postal payments & later by Forint. The value of the adópengő was adjusted each day, by radio announcement. On 1 January 1946 one adópengő equaled one pengő. On 18 August 1946, one forint equaled 400 octillion or 400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pengő.

   

The 100 million b.-pengő note was the highest denominated banknote ever 
issued, equaling 100 quintillion  (10²⁰⁾  Hungarian pengő 

   The largest denomination banknote ever officially issued for circulation was in 1946 by the Hungarian National Bank for the amount of 100 quintillion pengő (100,000,000,000,000,000,000, or 10²⁰; 100 trillion on the long scale).  The banknotes however did not depict the numbers, "hundred million b.-pengő" ("hundred million billion pengő") and "one milliard b.-pengő" were spelled out instead. This makes the 100,000,000,000,000 Zimbabwean dollar banknotes the notes with the greatest number of zeros shown.

A German lady burning worthless notes

German kids playing with banknotes

References & more reading
1.Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
2.http://moneytipcentral.com/inflation-in-america-what-will-hyperinflation-look-like

Strive for destiny...

   We, the people of culturally & socially, the most enriched nation on earth, are living amidst a kind of insecurity that we could never imagine before. The land that we could proudly claim as ours, has fallen into the stealthy hands of a boundless range of antisocial & antidemocratic evil forces. At this wonderful occassion of the 64th independence day of our nation, there are a few things that need to be assesed and worked upon in our forward path to being the most prosperous, safe, stable & secure nation on earth.

   Ours is a nation, bestowed with that degree of heritage, culture & people, that no other country could claim of. We have come through time tested stability over centuries. No country would have experienced such a diverse mix of culture in shaping its background.Through the Mauryas, Guptas & Mughals goes the endless list of contributors to our cultural heritage, with which we seek our identity & pride. Caught in the hands of 400 long years of foreign rule came those brave, valiant & selfless souls who gave up their entire long lives in the hands of an unpleasant destiny for what they valued the most, the freedom of their motherland, something which even the most lending souls of today would find hard to indulge. The names in plenty lead by our own Bappuji, a man that comes once in thousand years, a soul whom any country would strive to own,& by far the man of the millennium.  Every indian must have that sense of pride in uttering this list of forefathers who sacrificed their soul & heart for the goodness of this nation, the future of this nation, the people of this nation.

   Now, our country is the largest democracy on earth, the seventh largest in terms of area & the second on earth in terms of shear population. But what exactly is our nation? As our beloved Panditji, Jawaharlal Nehru once put it, its the people of this nation that forms it. The people are the biggest assest to it. Indians today account for 17.3% of the world population & are set to overrun China halfway through this century . But what really characterizes our nation & lends it a rare uniqueness, is its diversity. Spread over from Kashmir in the north to Kanyakumari in the south & from Gujarat in the west to Arunachal in the east, we speak around 1652 languages & follow approximately a dozen religious faiths, not to account for the numerous animist traditions.

   But amonst all this diversity & rich background, we have not achieved what we,or more appropriately, our forefathers strived for. Caught in the haste of social devils, hunger, poverty, disease, communalism, overkill of the never ending corruption,nepotism & the overall attitude of sluggishness, that has been associated with & cherished upon  by our rivals, largely because of our fault, over the past century.To add to these are the modern iniquities like terrorism & violence, that are much more difficult to curb& have been stealing the wealth, heritage & status of our country.

    And yet amidst all these, there is something, that small stalk at the end, that gives the hope of a better future. Guided by the experience & knowledge of our senior citizens, we have one of the largest populations of youth in this world, the ones who are to form the backbone of the future of his nation. By developing that kind of spirit, lets come forward, holding our tradition & culture in one hand & the same degree of fightedness & selflessness, that our forefathers maintained during the struggle for our independence, on the other hand, to make our nation hold the stand that it rightly deserved far before us...    
 'Jai Hind'

At the stroke of the midnight hour...

   On 3 June 1947, Viscount Lord Mountbatten of Burma, the last British Governor-General of India, announced the partitioning of the British Indian Empire into India and Pakistan, under the provisions of the Indian Independence Act 1947. At the stroke of midnight, on 14 August 1947, India became an independent nation. This was preceded by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's famous speech titled ' Tryst with Destiny '.

"Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.

At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her success and her failures. . The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?

Freedom and power bring responsibility. The responsibility rests upon this Assembly, a sovereign body representing the sovereign people of India.

To the people of India, whose representatives we are, we make an appeal to join us with faith and confidence in this great adventure. We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell.

It is a fateful moment for us in India, for all Asia and for the world. A new star rises, the star of freedom in the East, a new hope comes into being, a vision long cherished materializes. May the star never set and that hope never be betrayed!

In this day our first thoughts go to the architect of this freedom, the Father of our Nation [Gandhi], who, embodying the old spirit of India, held aloft the torch of freedom and lighted up the darkness that surrounded us. We shall never allow that torch of freedom to be blown out, however high the wind or stormy the tempest.

Our next thoughts must be of the unknown volunteers and soldiers of freedom who, without praise or reward, have served India even unto death.

We think also of our brothers and sisters who have been cut off from us by political boundaries and who unhappily cannot share at present in the freedom that has come. They are of us and will remain of us whatever may happen, and we shall be sharers in their good and ill fortune alike.

We are citizens of a great country on the verge of bold advance, and we have to live up to that high standard. All of us, to whatever religion we may belong, are equally the children of india with equal rights, privileges and obligations. We cannot encourage communalism or narrow mindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought or in action.

To the nations and peoples of the world we send greetings and pledge ourselves to cooperate with them in furthering peace, freedom and democracy.

And to India, our much-loved motherland, the ancient, the eternal and the ever-new, we pay our reverent homage and we bind ourselves afresh to her service."

Jai Hind!

Wishing all a Happy 64th Independence day of our country.. Let us take pride in every aspect of it, cherish the memories of our forefathers who dedicated their lives to the future of our wonderful nation...lets pledge not to let them down...

Bigfoot - truth or myth?

    Bigfoot or Sasquatch is a ape like mysterious creature reportedly sighted by a large number of people, chiefly in the Pacific Northwestern region of North America. Though usually described as a large bipedal humanoid, most scientists consider it just as a part of folklore or mostly a hoax rather than a legitimate megafaunal animal, in part because of the improbably large numbers necessary to maintain a breeding population, and because climate and food supply issues would make such purported creatures' survival in reported habitats unlikely. Cryptozoologists, a group of scientists who finds interest in these apparently unscientific creatures, do not consider it light and advocate further evaluation and testing. Bigfoot proponents Grover Krantz and Geoffrey Bourne believe that Bigfoot could be a relict population of Gigantopithecus.

  Among the huge number of reported encouters, the most popular one is the short motion picture (click HERE for the video) taken by Patterson and Gimlin on October 20,1967.The encounter allegedly took place at Bluff Creek, California, where the above two men were having a ride on their horses at around 1.30 PM. They noticed the cyptid when they went to investigate a large  overturned tree root, that they incidentally came across. Patterson reported that his horses reared upon probably the sight or smell of the sasquach. Recovering from a state of shock at the sight, Patterson snatched his camera and started chasing the beast, asking Gimlin to cover him. The film, lasting 53s, is shaky till Patterson recovered to about 80 foot. At that point, the figure glanced over its right shoulder at the men and Patterson fell to his knees. Patterson would later characterize the creature's expression as one of "contempt and disgust...you know how it is when the umpire tells you 'one more word and you're out of the game.' That's the way it felt." Patterson initially estimated its height at six and one-half to seven feet, and later raised his estimate to about seven and one-half feet.  Shortly after glancing over its shoulder, the creature walked behind a grove of trees, then reappeared for a while after Patterson moved ten feet to a better vantage point, faded into the trees again and is lost to view as the reel of film ran out. Gimlin remounted and followed it on horseback, keeping his distance, until it disappeared around a bend in the road three hundred yards away. Patterson called him back at that point, feeling vulnerable on foot without a rifle, because he feared the creature's mate might approach.

   A few hours after the encounter, Patterson telephoned Donald Abbott, whom Krantz described as "the only scientist of any stature to have demonstrated any serious interest in the (Bigfoot) subject," hoping he would help them search for the creature. Abbott declined, and Krantz argued this call to authorities the same day of the encounter is evidence against a hoax, at least on Patterson's part.Krantz writes that "Patterson had the film developed as soon as possible. At first he thought he had brought in proof of Bigfoot's existence and really expected the scientists to accept it. But only a few scientists were willing to even look at the film, and most of them promptly declared it a fake. It was then incorporated as the centerpiece of the documentary film that Patterson had set out to make in the first place." This film was a modest financial success after it was shown in local movie houses around the Pacific Northwest. Patterson sold overlapping distribution rights for the film to several parties, which resulted in costly legal entanglements.Both men have always dismissed allegations that they had hoaxed the footage by filming a man wearing an ape suit. Patterson, who died of cancer in 1972, swore on his death bed that the footage was authentic and he had encountered and filmed a large bipedal animal unknown to science.

References & more reading

1. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2. http://www.bermuda-triangle.org/bluff_creek_bigfoot.html