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The
Eiffel Tower is a an iron tower
built on the Champ de Mars beside
the River Seine in Paris, France.
It is the tallest structure in Paris
and possibly the most recognized
monument in the world. Named after
its designer, engineer Gustave Eiffel,
it is the most visited monument
in the world; 6,428,441 people visited
the tower in 2005 and more than
200 million since its construction.
Including the 24m antenna, the structure
is 324m high (since 2000), which
is about 81 stories. In 1902, it
was struck by lightning, which meant
that 300 feet of the top had to
be reconstructed and the lights
illuminating the tower had to be
replaced, as they were damaged by
the high energy of the lightning.
At the time of its construction
in 1889, the tower replaced the
Washington Monument as the world's
tallest structure, a title it retained
until 1930, when New York City's
Chrysler Building (319 m/1046.58
ft tall) was completed (today, the
Eiffel Tower is taller than the
Chrysler Building). The tower is
now the fifth-tallest structure
in France. The Eiffel Tower is the
tallest structure in Paris, with
the second-tallest being the Tour
Montparnasse (210 m/689 ft) and
it will be soon the Tour AXA (225.11
m/738.5 ft). |
The
structure of the Eiffel Tower weighs
7300 tons. There are 1660 steps (360
to the first level, another 359 to the
second). It is not possible for the
public to reach the summit via the stairs,
lifts are required beyond the second
platform. Lift tickets may be purchased
at the base or either platform. Depending
on the ambient temperature, the top
of the tower may shift away from the
sun by up to 18cm, due to thermal expansion
of the metal on the side facing the
sun. The tower also sways 6-7cm in the
wind.
Maintenance
of the tower includes applying 50/60
tons of three graded tones of paint
every seven years to protect it from
rust. On occasion, the color of the
paint is changed — the tower is currently
painted a shade of brownish-gray. However,
the tower is actually painted three
different colors in order to make it
look the same color. The colors change
from dark to light from top to bottom,
but it looks the same because of the
background (the sky being light and
the ground being dark). On the first
floor, there are interactive consoles
hosting a poll for the color to use
for a future session of painting. The
co-architects of the Eiffel Tower are
Emile Naugier, Maurice Koechlin and
Stephen Sauvestre.
After
the debacle of the Panama Canal with
Ferdinand De Lessups, Gustave Eiffel
began to experiment with enterprises
to prove the usefulness of his tower.
He had begun to develop a passionate
interest in that which, at the turn
of the century, was considered avant-garde
science: meteorology, radiotelegraphy
and aerodynamics.
In
1889, M. 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. In 1898, Eugene
Ducretet at the Pantheon, received signals
from the tower.
After
M. Eiffel had experimented 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.
Gustave Eiffel imagined an automatic
device sliding along a cable that was
stretched between the ground and the
second floor of the Eiffel Tower.
The
limited capacity of the available measuring
instruments, led M. Eiffel to a more
sophisticated knowledge in aviation
and, eventually, to wind tunnel experiments.
He built a wind tunnel on the Champ
de Mars, which was in use from 1909-1911.
The tunnel was sufficient for lab experiments
bit inadequate for the study of airplanes.
However, with the help of several other
engineers, Leon Rith, Lapresle, and
Eiffel made over 5,000 tests in this
lab. Almost all the pioneers of aviation
tested in this wind tunnel.
In
1911, a better wind tunnel which is
still in use was built and between 1912-1914,
Eiffel began experiments with military
equipment for WWI fighter planes. In
1917, the Eiffel Laboratory designed
a very advanced monoplane chaser of
which two prototypes were built in Breguet.
One crashed due to pilot error.
M.
Eiffel was a contemporary of Samuel
Langeley, the president of the Smithstonian
Institute, for whom the NASA field center
Langely Research Center was named. Much
of Eiffel's work had gone on to help
expand the science of aerodynamics.
NASA used many propeller and wind tunnel
experiments in their trainer planes
for astronauts.
Paris
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