Engineering Records & Feats Quiz

Answer: Norman Foster. Foster worked with French engineer Michel Virlogeux, who designed the structure. The steel deck, assembled on land, was pushed out over the Tarn valley using satellite-guided jacks. Construction took only about three years.

Answer: The Ever Given. The 400 m ship ran aground across the canal in strong winds. Hundreds of vessels waited at each end, disrupting world trade. Diggers, dredgers and tugs finally freed it with the help of a spring tide. The lock-free canal links the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.

Answer: Its 900-tonne instrument platform crashed into the dish. After several cables broke, the 305 m observatory had been judged too dangerous to repair; the collapse came before the planned dismantling. Arecibo had famously sent a radio message towards a star cluster in 1974 and featured in the film 'GoldenEye'.

Answer: About 1.6 km/h. This tracked vehicle, as big as a baseball diamond, weighs about 2,700 tonnes empty. It covers the roughly 6 km to the pad in several hours, keeping the rocket perfectly upright even on the final climb. It has been in use since the Apollo missions.

Answer: Its granite blocks hold together without mortar or cement, through weight and fit alone. Built around the 1st or 2nd century, it has more than 160 arches and stands nearly 29 m high in the city. It carried water until around the 19th century. A legend credited it to the devil, who supposedly built it in one night to win a young woman's soul.

Answer: About three to four months. The 828 m Dubai tower has more than 24,000 glass panels. Cradles hanging from rails travel down the façade; by the time a round is finished, it's almost time to start again, as desert sand quickly dirties the glass.

Answer: Gatún Lake, a huge rain-fed artificial freshwater lake. With each lockage, millions of litres of fresh water flow out to sea. During the 2023 drought, the lake level fell so far that daily transits had to be cut sharply. The new locks of 2016 recycle some water using basins.

Answer: To avoid getting in the way of planes at Copenhagen Airport and keep the shipping lane clear. A tall bridge near the airport would have been an obstacle for aircraft, and a low one would have blocked ships. Cars and trains therefore cross an artificial island, Peberholm, then dive into an immersed tunnel. The link inspired the crime series 'The Bridge'.

Answer: About 117 metres, longer than a football pitch. It is the largest aircraft ever built by wingspan. Its six engines come from Boeing 747s. Conceived by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, it now serves as a platform for releasing hypersonic test vehicles at altitude.

Answer: So any office could be reached on foot in under about ten minutes. Built in just 16 months during the Second World War, it has about 28 km of corridors. Thanks to its shape, distances stay short despite its size. Steel being reserved for the war effort, it was built mostly of reinforced concrete, originally with ramps rather than lifts.