this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2024
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[–] [email protected] 96 points 6 months ago (4 children)

Better keep it low profile, or some tourists will try some bad ideas.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 6 months ago (2 children)

American Boy Scout leaders.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Ruining historic natural monuments is somehow not first on the list of American Boy Scout leader atrocities 🫤

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago

Or this more recently 🙁

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

RIP Sycamore Gap tree.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

I feel like if this was my town idiots would have done it long ago by all means necessary

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (2 children)

A stick of dynamite might offset it enough to roll.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 6 months ago

This is the rock that keeps the Earth right side up. If you knock it off we flip upside down and Australia gets to rule the planet.

[–] Grass 44 points 6 months ago (4 children)

I would never go anywhere near that rock

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (4 children)
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[–] [email protected] 30 points 6 months ago

I don't care how long this has been going on, I ain't fucking around near that thing.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 6 months ago (9 children)

My cat would go there and push it over...

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 months ago

Ima have to see an 11,000 year old picture and an 11,001 year old picture as proof of this.

[–] JohnDClay 24 points 6 months ago

Very impressive from that view! But more stable than that tiny contact point would suggest.

Side view

[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Is there a country that uses a different thousands separator based on unit?

[–] [email protected] 23 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Yes, in a lot of places a period is used for order-of-magnitude separation and comma is used for decimal places.

In this title the use seems inconsistent.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago

Either the rock weighs exactly 500kg to an impressive precision and has been there for eleven thousand years or it weighs five hundred thousand kg and has been there for exactly 11 years.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

It's got something for everyone.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Finland uses space for thousands (and comma for decimals), so an article in Finnish would have 500 000 kg

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (4 children)

What happened 11,000 years ago?

[–] [email protected] 46 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The ice sheet covering northern europe started to melt away, and with that we got what is called "glacial erratics". Rocks had traveled from once place to another, and then settled. In Sweden we call those "giants throw", because it was assumed that the only way those big rocks could be where they are was if a giant had thrown it.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (1 children)

In Finland those are called siirtolohkare (moved boulder) or hiidenkivi (devil's rock)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I think we have the same terminology then, we also call them "flyttblock". Is there a story behind them being called Devil's rock? It sounds very finnish to me to be honest.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

Well "hiisi" translates to "devil" but that's very much a political translation as far as such things existed back then.

Translating "Hiisi" as "the Devil" is quite a fuck-the-pagans translation.

Hiisi (Finnish pronunciation: [ˈhiːsi]; plural hiidet [ˈhiːdet]) is a term in Finnic mythologies, originally denoting sacred localities and later on various types of mythological entities

Hiisi was originally a spirit of hill forests (Abercromby 1898). In Estonian hiis (or his) means a sacred grove in trees, usually on elevated ground. In the spells ("magic songs") of the Finns the term Hiisi is often used in association with a hill or mountain, as a personage he also associated with the hills and mountains, such as the owner or ruler of the same. His name is also commonly associated with forests, and some forest animals.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiisi

I think "the Fae" would be a more accurate translation, theology-wise.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

It's not literally devil (paholainen) but Hiisi, which is something similar in finnish mythology which obviously doesn't have a translation.

It's likely simply "only devil could have brought that stone here"

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

it was actually around 11025 years ago. i first heard about this in 1999, and it was 11000 years then.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago
[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

You're not gonna believe it.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

Nice, what bouldering grade?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If that was a comma, it would be way more impressive…

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago (1 children)

In Europe generally commas are used for decimals and periods for marking thousands

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Then, it's a very light rock!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Having exactly 500 kg up to three decimal places would still be quite impressive!

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Finland is not close enough to the edges of tectonic plates, so if we get earthquakes here at all, they're barely noticeable.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

The age sends my imagination racing, I wonder if there was a Proto-Indo-European name for it, as a remote curiosity/enigma.

"They say that somewhere up north, half a moon beyond the most remote village, there is a large stone put on top of another by the hand of the Earth Goddess herself."

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Or some aliens with antigrav guns were like "Hey you know what would be funny?!?"

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Let's hope it doesn't get destroyed by idiots.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

There is another of these in Lanesborough, Massachusetts, USA.

Balance Rock State Park

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Can anyone tell me why the bottom rock is so smooth? I imagine people come and sit on it and touch them both frequently, and that they are two rocks from different places but they each look very dissimilar. I guess what I am really asking, is the bottom rock so smooth because of the big boy topping it?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Likely glaciation, the bottom rock was likely on the bottom of an ice sheet and millions of tons of ice moving over it over time had smoothed it out.

The top rock is probably from many miles away and was carried and placed there from the receding glacier. To me the top rock looks like it is a completely different type of stone then the bottom.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I'm not convinced that weighs 500 tons, that's the same as at least 65 of the largest African elephants or 2.5 of the largest blue whales

[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (7 children)

After some googling, some of the heavier rock types are 3g/cm^3, which is 3000kg/m^3

If we use the person as a rough ruler of 1.6m, the rock is about 5 person wide, and 3 person high (eye measure), give or take. And if we say it's 3 person deep, then it has a rough mass of 5*3*3*1.6*3000 = 216 000 kg, which is in the same order of magnitude.

Close enough to check out, I'd say.

Edit: I realized since the actual ruler we use is 1.6m (assumed), it should be multiplied by 1.6 three times (one for each dimension/length), not just once. If we do that, we end up with 921 600 kg instead, putting 500 000 kg well within the range of possibilities from a quick calculation.

Edit 2: as pointed out below, the actual correct estimation would be 553 tons

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Your edit is correct except I get 553 tons! I'm still shocked it'd easily tip the scales vs 2 large blue whales

Edit: ahh you accidentally did 5x5x3 instead of 5x3x3

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

Useless. We all want something standard. Like how many pygmy marmosets that is.

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