• Paul Drye@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    Depends on the compressive strength of the material. Sooner or later the weight of the pyramid above the base exceeds the base’s ability to support it. Considering that a mountain is basically a stone pyramid, Everest has to be in the neighbourhood of how tall you could go – call it 10-12 kilometers high. Other materials would do better.

    • Shadow@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      With the way the bricks are laid, wouldn’t it distribute the weight across the entire base?

      • Paul Drye@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        Yes, but it doesn’t matter enough. The square-cube law means that the mass being supported goes up faster than the area of the layer doing the supporting does. So each additional brick on the bottom still ends up carrying more weight as the pyramid gets taller.