Take for example the Taipei 101 Tower:
– 508.2 meters high
– Weighs 700,000 tons
– Ground floor is 57×63.5 meters, which is 3619.5 m²
– That means an area of 3619.5m² has to hold up 700.000 tons, which is ~193 tons per m² which is 193.000 kilograms per m²
I don’t know but 193.000 kilograms feels like an unbearable crushing all-pulverizing weight to me.
Obviously it works since the Taipei 101 tower and other huge buildings exist, but intuitively I don’t understand how the bases of large and tall buildings don’t instantly pulverize under the weight of everything above it.
In: 1790
200 tons may sound like a lot. That is more then two fully loaded semi-trucks. But concrete and steel are similarly strong so the weight itself is not the big issue. For a simple demonstration you can look at [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Spj8_ED0TA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Spj8_ED0TA) . That shows 150 tons on a single concrete brick without cracking it, only when they turned it on its weaker side did it fail. So as long as you have more then two of these bricks every square meter you can hold up the Taipei 101. Obviously it is a bit more complex as the load can shift around as things move, and you have lateral forces from wind and the building swaying.
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