[valis]

Here's the criteria for this situation.

It's quite simple. What will last longer? I thought about the man-made stuff we have here in America while watching a special on the Pyramids of Giza, and it got me wondering what would last longer, all things being equal.

So, I chose the location of Mt. Rushmore. That's going to be there a long time. The combatants are as follows:

Mt. Rushmore

A non-drilled 16 lb bowling ball

A 1950's era locomotive engine

A ski boot (preferable technica, but it's immaterial).

All items places on or around Mt. Rushmore, preferably above it, so that in the case of a large rain storm, the mobile objects wouldn't be subject to being underwater.

Pointless, yes, but this keeps me up at night, so I reckoned you shouldn't sleep either.

No problem is if this is deemed destined for random.

Poll will be public if I can figure it out.

[valis]

fwiw, i'm still deciding between the bowling ball and mt. rushmore.

[SlackAli]

Call me a pedantic old tosspot by all means, but surely Mount Rushmore is not a synthetic artifact like the other choices. Has to be the Mount though: none of the others have had Eve Marie Saint's butt sliding down them - to my uncertain knowledge

[Stoner]

Rushmore is mostly granite.
Less chemical reactivity to the elements than the other choices.
I'll go with it .

[Chicon]

New models of ski boots have a lot of synthetic stuff to make them light, flexible and tough. If they were to 'survive' a long time, only their synthetic parts would remain.

[Wino]

Voted for the bowling ball (second choice was ski boot). Mt. Rushmore will slowly erode and cover the BB. Once it is protected from the sun, there is no chance it will degrade further. Mt. Rushmore will be as flat as Eva Marie Saints' chest and the BB will still be able to do ten pins......................IMHO. Laying inert and unused a Columbia 300 is indestructible.

[Stoner]

Originally Posted by Wino

Voted for the bowling ball (second choice was ski boot). Mt. Rushmore will slowly erode and cover the BB. Once it is protected from the sun, there is no chance it will degrade further. Mt. Rushmore will be as flat as Eva Marie Saints' chest and the BB will still be able to do ten pins......................IMHO. Laying inert and unused a Columbia 300 is indestructible.

One good lightning strike and the boots and ball are history

[SlackAli]

Rushmore's been around a long time - Wiki says Black Hills were exposed around 70million years ago (so I suppose the dinosaurs knew them by another name). Of course if you're a young earth creationist, it's a much more level playing field

[valis]

Originally Posted by Wino

Voted for the bowling ball (second choice was ski boot). Mt. Rushmore will slowly erode and cover the BB. Once it is protected from the sun, there is no chance it will degrade further. Mt. Rushmore will be as flat as Eva Marie Saints' chest and the BB will still be able to do ten pins......................IMHO. Laying inert and unused a Columbia 300 is indestructible.

that's what I was waffling about....those are some rather dense long-string polymers there....I can see them being around a bit.

And that's a LOT of them to degrade. Boils down to which is denser; Mt. Rushmore or the bowling ball.....now imagine a bowling ball on the scale of Mt. Rushmore, and I think all bets are off.

[valis]

Originally Posted by Stoner

One good lightning strike and the boots and ball are history

isn't that what happened to the sphinx's nose?

[valis]

Originally Posted by SlackAli

Rushmore's been around a long time - Wiki says Black Hills were exposed around 70million years ago (so I suppose the dinosaurs knew them by another name). Of course if you're a young earth creationist, it's a much more level playing field

yeah, but they were underwater for a longish period of time thanks to lake agassiz.....I don't know what they were like prior to the inundation.

[Wino]

Originally Posted by Stoner

One good lightning strike and the boots and ball are history

That would be an act of God which means it will never happen. Besides, acrylic and polyurethane is an insulator and bad conductor........chances of a lightening strike are nil. The Columbia 300 was manufactured in my town from the mid 60's until a few years ago when they were bought out and moved to Kentucky. Have spent a few hours in their old manufacturing plant over the years............you'd love it! The fumes were intoxicating................and I mean that literally

[Chicon]

Originally Posted by valis

isn't that what happened to the sphinx's nose?

Hi Tim,

Egyptology is an à propos subject of biodegration. A few weeks ago, I watched a document about egyptian mummies. Some of them seemed perfectly preserved. They just looked dried in such way that if we accidently pour water on them, they may recover their original form.
I noticed that they also had good dentition. Surely, they didn't need to wear a set of false teeth like many old people I know. I guess, in the future, archeologists may only find flashy pink and white dentures when they are digging old graves.

[LANMaster]

Originally Posted by valis

isn't that what happened to the sphinx's nose?

I had heard it was a Nazi tank shell or Nepoleon that did that.

Just found this;

In 1737, British traveler Richard Pococke visited Egypt and made a sketch of the Sphinx that was published six years later. The nose is shown intact, but Pococke likely exercised his poetic license by adding it when it was not there (earlier, in 1579, Johannes Helferich had further taken an artist's liberties by depicting the Sphinx with a nose -- and with decidedly female features). Frederick Lewis Norden, an artist and marine architect, also sketched the Sphinx in 1737. His detailed drawings, published in 1755, were more realistic and showed the Sphinx with no nose. It is very unlikely that Norden would omit the nose if it was present. We can conclude that the nose was gone by 1737 at the latest; thus its removal can not be blamed on Napoleon's troops, who visited more than 50 years later.

[LANMaster]

I picked the bowling ball .... assuming that it stays in a closet unexposed to the elements.