{"id":1203002,"date":"2023-11-14T17:19:25","date_gmt":"2023-11-14T22:19:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1203002"},"modified":"2023-11-14T17:19:25","modified_gmt":"2023-11-14T22:19:25","slug":"study-reveals-how-natural-processes-helped-sculpt-the-great-sphinx-of-giza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1203002","title":{"rendered":"Study reveals how natural processes helped sculpt the Great Sphinx of Giza"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"rss-wrap\">\n<figure class=\"intro-image intro-left\">\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/sphinxTOP-800x534-1.jpg\" alt=\"Frontal view of the Great Sphinx of Giza in Egypt\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\" style=\"font-size:0.8em\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/sphinxTOP.jpg\" class=\"enlarge-link\" data-height=\"801\" data-width=\"1200\">Enlarge<\/a> <span class=\"sep\">\/<\/span> Experiments yield fresh evidence to support controversial hypothesis about the formation of the Great Sphinx of Giza. (credit: <a rel=\"nofollow\" class=\"caption-link\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">MusikAnimal\/CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<div><a name=\"page-1\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Leif Ristroph, a <a href=\"https:\/\/math.nyu.edu\/aml\/\">physicist and applied mathematician<\/a> at New York University, was conducting experiments on how clay erodes in response to flowing water when he noticed tiny shapes emerging that resembled seated lions\u2014in essence, miniature versions of the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Great_Sphinx_of_Giza\">Great Sphinx of Giza<\/a> in Egypt. Further experiments provided evidence in support of a longstanding hypothesis that natural processes first created a land formation known as a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Yardang\">yardang<\/a>, after which humans added additional details to create the final statue. Initial results were first presented last year as part of the American Physical Society&#8217;s Gallery of Fluid Motion, with a full paper being published this week in the journal Physical Review Fluids.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our results suggest that Sphinx-like structures can form under fairly commonplace conditions,&#8221; Ristroph et al. wrote in their paper. &#8220;These findings hardly resolve the mysteries behind yardangs and the Great Sphinx, but perhaps they provoke us to wonder what awe-inspiring landforms ancient people could have encountered in the deserts of Egypt and why they might have envisioned a fantastic creature.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/science\/2018\/09\/theres-now-an-even-more-precise-recipe-for-blowing-the-perfect-bubble\/\">In 2018<\/a>, Ristroph&#8217;s applied mathematics lab <a href=\"https:\/\/journals.aps.org\/prl\/abstract\/10.1103\/PhysRevLett.121.094501\">fine-tuned the recipe<\/a> for blowing the perfect bubble based on experiments with soapy thin films, pinpointing exactly what wind speed is needed to push out the film and cause it to form a bubble, and how that speed depends on parameters like the size of the wand. (You want a circular wand with a 1.5-inch perimeter, and you should gently blow at a consistent 6.9 cm\/s.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/?p=1983658#p3\">Read 10 remaining paragraphs<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/?p=1983658&amp;comments=1\">Comments<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#013;<br \/>\n&#013;<br \/>\nSource: Ars Technica &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/?p=1983658\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Study reveals how natural processes helped sculpt the Great Sphinx of Giza<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Enlarge \/ Experiments yield fresh evidence to support controversial hypothesis about the formation of the Great Sphinx of Giza. (credit: MusikAnimal\/CC BY-SA 3.0) Leif Ristroph, a physicist and applied mathematician at New York University, was conducting experiments on how clay &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1203002\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1203003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,110],"tags":[73],"class_list":["post-1203002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ars-technica","category-unfiltered-rss","tag-ars-technica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1203002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1203003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1203002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1203002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1203002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}