首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Why Pagodas Don’t Fall Down A)In a land swept by typhoons and shaken by earthquakes, how have Japan’s tallest and seemingly flim
Why Pagodas Don’t Fall Down A)In a land swept by typhoons and shaken by earthquakes, how have Japan’s tallest and seemingly flim
admin
2015-01-31
70
问题
Why Pagodas Don’t Fall Down
A)In a land swept by typhoons and shaken by earthquakes, how have Japan’s tallest and seemingly flimsiest old buildings—500 or so wooden pagodas—remained standing for centuries? Records show that only two have collapsed during the past 1400 years. Those that have disappeared were destroyed by fire as a result of lightning or civil war.
B)The disastrous Hanshin earthquake in 1995 killed 6,400 people, toppled elevated highways, flattened office blocks and devastated the port area of Kobe. Yet it left the magnificent five-storey pagoda at the Toji temple in nearby Kyoto unscathed, though it levelled a number of buildings in the neighbourhood.
C)Japanese scholars have been mystified for ages about why these tall, slender buildings are so stable. It was only thirty years ago that the building industry felt confident enough to erect office blocks of steel and reinforced concrete that had more than a dozen floors. With its special shock absorbers to dampen the effect of sudden sideways movements from an earthquake, the thirty-six-storey Kasumigaseki building in central Tokyo—Japan’s first skyscraper—was considered a masterpiece of modern engineering when it was built in 1968.
D)Yet in 826, with only pegs and wedges to keep his wooden structure upright, the master builder Kobodaishi had no hesitation in sending his majestic Toji pagoda soaring fifty-five metres into the sky—nearly half as high as the Kasumigaseki skyscraper built some eleven centuries later. Clearly, Japanese carpenters of the day knew a few tricks about allowing a building to sway and settle itself rather than fight nature’ s forces. But what sort of tricks?
E)The multi-storey pagoda came to Japan from China in the sixth century. As in China, they were first introduced with Buddhism and were attached to important temples. The Chinese built their pagodas in brick or stone, with inner staircases, and used them in later centuries mainly as watchtowers.
F)When the pagoda reached Japan, however, its architecture was freely adapted to local conditions—they were built less high, typically five rather than nine storeys, made mainly of wood and the staircase was dispensed with because the Japanese pagoda did not have any practical use but became more of an art object. Because of the typhoons that batter Japan in the summer, Japanese builders learned to extend the eaves of buildings further beyond the walls. This prevents rainwater gushing down the walls. Pagodas in China and Korea have nothing like the overhang that is found on pagodas in Japan.
G)The roof of a Japanese temple building can be made to overhang the sides of the structure by fifty percent or more of the building’ s overall width. For the same reason, the builders of Japanese pagodas seem to have further increased their weight by choosing to cover these extended eaves not with the porcelain tiles of many Chinese pagodas but with much heavier earthenware tiles.
H)But this does not totally explain the great resilience of Japanese pagodas. Is the answer that, like a tall pine tree, the Japanese pagoda—with its massive trunk—like central pillar known as shinbashira—simply flexes and sways during a typhoon or earthquake? For centuries, many thought so. But the answer is not so simple because the startling thing is that the shinbashira actually carries no load at all.
I)In fact, in some pagoda designs, it does not even rest on the ground, but is suspended from the top of the pagoda—hanging loosely down through the middle of the building. The weight of the building is supported entirely by twelve outer and four inner columns.
J)And what is the role of the shinbashira, the central pillar? The best way to understand the shinbashira’ s role is to watch a video made by Shuzo Ishida, a structural engineer at Kyoto Institute of Technology. Mr Ishida, known to his students as "Professor Pagoda" because of his passion to understand the pagoda, has built a series of models and tested them on a "shake-table" in his laboratory. In short, the shinbashira was acting like an enormous stationary pendulum. The ancient craftsmen, apparently without the assistance of very advanced mathematics, seemed to grasp the principles that were, more than a thousand years later, applied in the construction of Japan’ s first skyscraper.
K)What those early craftsmen had found by trial and error was that under pressure a pagoda’ s loose stack of floors could be made to slither to and fro independent of one another. Viewed from the side, the pagoda seemed to be doing a snake dance—with each consecutive floor moving in the opposite direction to its neighbours above and below. The shinbashira, running up through a hole in the centre of the building, constrained individual storeys from moving too far because, after moving a certain distance, they banged into it, transmitting energy away along the column.
L)Another strange feature of the Japanese pagoda is that, because the building tapers, with each successive floor plan being smaller than the one below, none of the vertical pillars that carry the weight of the building is connected to its corresponding pillar above. In other words, a five-storey pagoda contains not even one pillar that travels right up through the building to carry the structural loads from the top to the bottom.
M)More surprising is the fact mat the individual storeys of a Japanese pagoda, unlike their counterparts elsewhere, are not actually connected to each other. They are simply stacked one on top of another like a pile of hats. Interestingly, such a design would not be permitted under current Japanese building regulations.
N)And the extra-wide eaves? Think of them as a tightrope walker’s balancing pole. The bigger the mass at each end of the pole, the easier it is for the tightrope walker to maintain his or her balance. The same holds true for a pagoda. "With the eaves extending out on all sides like balancing poles", says Mr Ishida, "the building responds to even the most powerful jolt of an earthquake with a graceful swaying, never an abrupt shaking". Here again, Japanese master builders of a thousand years ago anticipated concepts of modern structural engineering.
The storeys of a Japanese pagoda are fitted loosely on top of each other.
选项
答案
M
解析
题干意为,日本宝塔的楼层间松松地堆叠在一起。原文M段第一句,“More surprising is the fact that the individual storeys of Japanese pagoda are notactually connected to each other.”题干“fitted loosely”与“not actually connected”互为近义替换。因此选择M。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/vJh7777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
A、Thoselivingoutdoors.B、Thoseinfullbloom.C、Thosegrowingslowly.D、Thosehavingbeenwatered.B细节题。文中提到,突然遭遇寒冷对植物是最大的威胁,尤
A、Themanwastheonlysurvivorofanaircrash.B、Peopleonboardwerefrightenedandtriedtoescape.C、Themanhasalwaysbee
ImprovingthebalancebetweentheworkingpartofthedayandtherestofitisagoalofagrowingnumberofworkersinrichWe
ImprovingthebalancebetweentheworkingpartofthedayandtherestofitisagoalofagrowingnumberofworkersinrichWe
A、PostinghomemadevideooraudioontheInternet.B、SpecializinginmouthingBackstreetBoys’songs.C、Makingaudioorvideoin
A、PostinghomemadevideooraudioontheInternet.B、SpecializinginmouthingBackstreetBoys’songs.C、Makingaudioorvideoin
A、Horseriders.B、Teenagegirls.C、Canadianparents.D、Internationaltravelers.C选项表明,本题考查人物身份。短文通篇在介绍ShadowRidgeSummerCamps,
WhyPagodasDon’tFallDownA)Inalandsweptbytyphoonsandshakenbyearthquakes,howhaveJapan’stallestandseeminglyflim
WhyPagodasDon’tFallDownA)Inalandsweptbytyphoonsandshakenbyearthquakes,howhaveJapan’stallestandseeminglyflim
Everyyearthroughouttheworld【C1】______6,000earthquakesaredetected.Thevastmajorityoftheseare【C2】______toosmallorto
随机试题
软化切制后暴晒会使鞣质氧化聚合而泛红的药材是
转移定价过程中,当跨国公司要把产品销往高关税国家的分公司时,应该()
对资本主义私有制的改造,马克思和恩格斯曾经设想过暴力没收、和平赎买两种形式,而和平赎买的必要性在于()
不属于臂丛的神经为
患者久病,畏寒喜暖,形寒肢冷,面色咣白,蜷卧神疲,小便清长,下利清谷,偶见小腿浮肿,按之凹陷如泥,舌淡脉迟。其病机是()
下列词语中没有错别字的一组是()。
项目法人一般不得直接指定分包人,项目法人可直接指定分包人的情况有()。
某建设工程合同约定,“工程通过竣工验收后2个月内,结清全部工程款”。2005年10月1日工程通过竣工验收,10月10日承包人提交竣工结算文件,10月20日承包几将工程移交发包人,但发包人一直未付工程余款。2006年5月1日,承包人将发包人起诉至人民法院,要
数据库系统是实现有组织地、动态地存储大量___________数据,支持多用户访问的计算机软件、________和数据资源组成的系统。
学校德育的基本方法就是榜样教育法。()
最新回复
(
0
)