# What is the heaviest thing ever built by mankind? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 1, 2013, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-heaviest-thing-ever-built-by-mankind/672844 "2013-11-01T14:58:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-heaviest-thing-ever-built-by-mankind/672844/21 "2013-11-01T19:29:44Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > The only metric that makes sense here is the amount of rock chipped away. Agreed, and since Rushmore isn’t the largest bas relief sculpture in the world (that would be Stone Mountain, GA) I suppose it wouldn’t qualify at all. Even the carving at Stone Mountain is only about 12,000 sq meters, and its deepest cut is only 3.7 meters deep. If we include roads, then what is the longest road? If memory serves me correctly, the Pan-American Highway may be a good candidate for this. For that matter, could we consider the entire Interstate Highway System as a structure? It is contiguous (excepting the portions in Alaska and Hawaii, of course). Of course, the OP specified ‘thing’ not ‘structure’. Is a city a thing? I think so. This makes the question almost meaningless, and almost certainly unanswerable. That is a bit disappointing since it seemed at first glance to be something you might be able to look up in a table of ‘really heavy things’. ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-heaviest-thing-ever-built-by-mankind/672844/22 "2013-11-01T20:03:46Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > A 26 pound brick needs 8 men to carry it? :dubious: > maybe they mean 260 lb bricks? Isn’t China known for its low unemployment? ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-heaviest-thing-ever-built-by-mankind/672844/23 "2013-11-01T21:08:13Z")
I think we want to find a way to exclude extended systems. What about the telecommmunication and electrical systems, spanning the globe and connecting computers, servors, televisions, and technically just about every house and building outside of the third world. That’s got to weigh a lot. I leave it as an exercise to the reader… ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-heaviest-thing-ever-built-by-mankind/672844/24 "2013-11-02T00:20:37Z")
Would a canal (e.g. Panama) be a contender? How about a man-made lake? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-heaviest-thing-ever-built-by-mankind/672844/25 "2013-11-02T00:33:09Z")
The US highway system ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-heaviest-thing-ever-built-by-mankind/672844/26 "2013-11-02T02:18:49Z")
How heavy are the various electromagnetic emanations emitted by man-made things? Maybe, as to unity, the comple run of _Gunsmoke_ could be considered. Plus, OP of course was on weight, not mass. Might some of our man-made radiation have made it to [V4641 Sgr?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V4641_Sagittarii), or some black-hole closer? ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-heaviest-thing-ever-built-by-mankind/672844/27 "2013-11-02T08:17:49Z")
> [@yabob](#): > > Estimates for the Great Wall of China vary over an order of magnitude, but it seems that the weight of bricks alone is easily over 100 million tons. > > Yeah, it’s going to depend on how you define it. Even if you discount the water in man made reservoirs, what about rammed earth structures, like walls and dams? If we consider that, the Great Wall of China gets to add the weight of its rammed earth. > > Criteria which allows the dam but not the wall? We could insist that the “structure” has to be in a reasonable area, rather than extending all over the landscape. An extended wall, however massive, just doesn’t “feel” like a single cohesive “structure”. I don’t really buy that, but it’s probably an arguable position. > > My current vote is for the Great Wall if we don’t count the water in reservoirs, which I’m inclined not to - the dam is the structure, not the reservoir. My take on this would be that this is similar to the old myth about the Great Wall being the only structure visible from space. It’s long been debunked (from higher altitudes you can’t see it with the naked eye, and when yoz go down to alitudes where you can see, you can see lots of other man-made structures as well), but it’s still around. Just serves to illustrate that people tend to overestimate the size of the Great Wall. Yes, it’s very long, stretching for thousands of miles; but it’s not particularly large in cross-section, and so could be beatemn, when it comes to volume and weight, by structures which are less long, but at the same time wider and higher than the Great Wall. The Great Wall is “big” in only one dimension of space, other structures, such as dams, are big in all three. Besides this, there is a number of arguments that could be raised against the Great Wall being regarded as a “thing” for the purposes of this thread, not just extension. You could also throw in the criteria that it must have been built within a reasonable timespan, which the Great Wall, the construction of which extended over two millennia, wasn’t. You could also throw in the argument that a “thing” for these purposes must have been built as a coherent project following some sort of master plan in mind, which, again, the Great Wall wasn’t - new sections were added as the necessity arose. If you disregard these criteria, you can count the Great Wall as a “thing”, but in that case you could also make tha argument that cities, or infrastructure networks such as highways, are a “thing”. ---
**Author:** ![Jamodu\_Green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Jamodu\_Green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jamodu_Green)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-heaviest-thing-ever-built-by-mankind/672844/28 "2013-11-02T11:18:00Z")
How about a man made island or reclaimed land? [Link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_reclamation#Land_amounts_added). ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-heaviest-thing-ever-built-by-mankind/672844/29 "2013-11-02T12:32:19Z")
The karmic burden we collectively share for all of the species we have exploited to extinction? ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-heaviest-thing-ever-built-by-mankind/672844/30 "2013-11-02T12:38:57Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > The karmic burden we collectively share for all of the species we have exploited to extinction? Yeah, wow… that’s deep, man. 😉 I’ll see your karmic burden and raise you ‘Original Sin’. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-heaviest-thing-ever-built-by-mankind/672844/31 "2013-11-02T12:59:42Z")
> [@Gagundathar](#): > > Yeah, wow… that’s deep, man. > 😉 Well, I’ll take what I can get, I suppose, but I was actually going for _“heavy, man.”_ ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-heaviest-thing-ever-built-by-mankind/672844/32 "2013-11-02T13:23:16Z")
> [@Gagundathar](#): > > Yeah, wow… that’s deep, man. > 😉 > > I’ll see your karmic burden and raise you ‘Original Sin’. I was going to go with “your Mom.” ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-heaviest-thing-ever-built-by-mankind/672844/33 "2013-11-02T20:03:18Z")
> [@phreesh](#): > > Another fringe case, but what about Mount Rushmore? Actually, people built little or none of that, right? They uncovered it. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2013, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-heaviest-thing-ever-built-by-mankind/672844/34 "2013-11-03T02:09:02Z")
The reservoir behind the dam weighs a hell of a lot more and it was created by Man. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2013, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-heaviest-thing-ever-built-by-mankind/672844/35 "2013-11-03T02:48:41Z")
How about the U.S. Interstate highway system? It is at least as much of a ‘single thing’ as the Great Wall of China and it was designed and constructed over just a few decades as a cohesive system so I think it gets extra points for that. It is all connected to together outside of the Interstate highways in Hawaii so I don’t see any reason to rule it out. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2013, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-heaviest-thing-ever-built-by-mankind/672844/36 "2013-11-03T03:03:32Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > How heavy are the various electromagnetic emanations emitted by man-made things? > > Maybe, as to unity, the comple run of _Gunsmoke_ could be considered. > > Plus, OP of course was on weight, not mass. Might some of our man-made radiation have made it to [V4641 Sgr?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V4641_Sagittarii), or some black-hole closer? Negligible And no, given that V4641 Sagittarii 1s 1600 light years away and radio has only been around for about 200 years. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2013, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-heaviest-thing-ever-built-by-mankind/672844/37 "2013-11-03T03:19:57Z")
There’s 1,000 kg gold coins. I beleive that would be heaviest by volume. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2013, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-heaviest-thing-ever-built-by-mankind/672844/38 "2013-11-03T04:25:25Z")
Extended entity created by humans? How about the human race? Hard to say it hasn’t been created by mankind. 7 billion people, say average mass of 50kg - (allow for smaller races and children - still might be a tad high) is 350 million tons. (385 million short tons). ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2013, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-heaviest-thing-ever-built-by-mankind/672844/39 "2013-11-03T05:48:32Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > Extended entity created by humans? How about the human race? Hard to say it hasn’t been created by mankind. 7 billion people, say average mass of 50kg - (allow for smaller races and children - still might be a tad high) is 350 million tons. (385 million short tons). Not exactly a _structure_, now, is it, as requested in the OP?:dubious: A number of the other suggestions are going off on even wilder tangents. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2013, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-heaviest-thing-ever-built-by-mankind/672844/40 "2013-11-03T06:13:36Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > How about the human race? Hard to say it hasn’t been created by mankind. There are millions of Christians in the US alone who say it wasn’t created by mankind. Their evidence is a little thin, but they’re quite adamant about it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-heaviest-thing-ever-built-by-mankind/672844.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-heaviest-thing-ever-built-by-mankind/672844.md?page=3)