In Greek mythology the character Sisyphus is condemned for eternity to pushing a boulder uphill. That sounds a little like this project, but instead of one boulder it’s lots of big rocks, and though a given rock makes it to the top there are always more rocks to move up there.
The original design was for a five-circuit labyrinth. Once that was completed then the sisyphistic endeavour would be complete. Well, it wouldn’t be sisyphistic if it was completable, now would it? To ensure the project’s futility I needed something more to do. The solution: expansion! The new goal is to expand the original 5-circuit labyrinth to 7-circuits.
Adding two more circuits requires two more outer rings, which adds about 67.8% more material than the original 5-circuit labyrinth. That’s over ⅔ more rocks, representing an estimated 8,700 more pounds of stone added to the original 12,800 pounds already moved.
Fun.
To keep the original site usable during the expansion the original design remains unaltered while the two outer rings are added. The process looks like this…
- Start with the original 5-circuit layout:
- Next, add the two outer rings in green:
- Last, we need only move the rocks from the red places to the green places, like flipping 12 switches, minimizing the time and effort of the transition:
- Finally, here’s the upgraded 7-circuit:
So far we’re about ½ way through Step 2 above. We just need to move another 4,300 pounds of stone from ¼ mile away. Wanna help?