– This will only anger the kaiju: Supposedly, a physicist has suggested (possibly in jest) that a very large wall might reduce the incidence of tornados in the U.S. Midwest:

Proposed by physicist Rongjia Tao of Temple University, the walls would measure about 1,000 feet high and 150 feet wide. According to his research, it would stop the flow of air from the north and south, preventing tornadoes from forming. The concept stems from China, where mountain ranges from east to west help reduce tornadoes.

Meteorologist and professional storm chaser, Tony Laubach was skeptical about the logistics of this idea. On America’s Newsroom, he told Bill Hemmer, “Scientifically what he’s proposing, I don’t think is going to have an effect on a big enough scale to mitigate tornado dangers.”

It might not have much of an effect, which is not a ringing endorsement of a 1,000-foot-high wall. Every hundred yards of this wall would require 4.5 million cubic feet of building and fill material. That sounds expensive.

The estimated cost is about $60 billion per 100 miles. Laubach said that money could be used to fund better research and build stronger structures to keep people safe from tornadoes.

If we’re going to be building giant structures based on some pretty speculative meteorology and physics, can we just go ahead and start building some arcologies?

If we build enough of these, we can fly to outer space! (Via svtim.es)

No, scratch that. Let’s build a Halo. I call dibs on the Library. Continue reading →