Talk:Tower of Art
perhaps a bit too shallow? 1.08 inches per riser on each step seems a bit too low, when you consider that in classical mediaeval buildings, each step on a spiral staircase rises by 4-6 inches. Noting the 8.00 feet of headroom between any point on the helix and its corresponding point on the next twist higher, is there anything to stop us dividing the space as
6" - step height 5'9" - average height of adult male (inc.wizard) (up to) 1'9" (21 inches) to allow for taller Wizards and a pointy hat of up to 2" tall.
6" + 5'9" + 1'9" == 8'0".
Also, given that we know the tower was originally used as a combined Hall of Residence plus lecture rooms, office facilities, et c, it bothers me slightly that there are no windows: that the clever person making this initial calculation had the spiral staircase running around the inside of the wall, which forces the rooms/offices into the centre of the structure with no direct access to daylight. (the staircase in this analysis runs between the inner rooms and the outside wall - you effectively have an inner tower within an outer shell).
OK, you could argue that wizards might like to lock themselves away and live by candlelight and only come out at night, but surely there's a parellel here with a monastic order: to read and create ornate books and scrolls of magic, daylight is best? The monks in the scriptatoriums didn't work by candlelight, after all. I can see an arrangement like this, packed to maximum capacity with wizards, getting unbearably choky and suffocating - doesn't feel as if it would be well-ventilated enough.
A typical tower structure - I'm thinking mediaeval England and Wales here, such as the bell-tower at Norwich Cathedral or the Eagle Tower at Caernarfon Castle - might have had one, or more, discrete and separate spiral staircases within its walls.
(Gods know how this could be applied to the Tower of Art nor what the maths of a couple of smaller spirals1 would look like, but it may have something in common with the Tooth Fairy's tower, where up to four Escher-esque spirals cross and intersect each other on the inside?)
I still tip my hat to the mathematician who did this working-out, though. Do we have camels contributing to this site? This one must have collaborated with the donkey that got back down the minaret. --AgProv 10:06, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
- 1. Two spirals...a double helix, then; a giant phallic object filled with geological genetic material pointed to the sky. Was this when the gods decided it was time to beat down these Wizards? --Old Dickens (talk) 22:14, 24 June 2013 (GMT)
I can't find anything wrong with the arithmetic, but the assumptions ain't necessarily so. The stairway is practically a ramp anyway; the tread depth could be anything, making the diameter larger or even smaller. Nobody builds a cylindrical tower: even if you can it doesn't look good. As for light - fire and light are Manifestation 101 at UU; easiest thing in the world. Even Nanny Ogg does a low-key version. --Old Dickens 01:41, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
It's also approximately the same height as One Canada Square in London's Canary Wharf, or the Woolworth Building in NY. --Megahurts 14:07, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
"it follows that each step is roughly an inch high." Unless it's taller inside than outside. cf Bugarup University, The Last Continent. Calmeilles (talk) 17:11, 24 June 2013 (GMT)
Good math, but where does it say it was originally, or ever, used for any work? --Confusion (talk) 07:49, 1 January 2014 (GMT)