[www.academia.edu]
The paper isn't really THAT bad but he dismisses the effort to build ramps with a simple "we don't know what they looked like so they mustta been easy" and of course the paper begins with "They mustta used ramps". At no time does it address the fact that there is no known way to build the ramps only once to build a perfect cladded pyramid. At no point does he address the difficulty of extending any ramping system ever higher on a construction getting ever smaller or needing more men in a shrinking volume. He goes so far as to imply that since the angle of a ramp drops out of equations for the amount of work required that the number of men required for a ramp with a .0001 angle is the same as for a 89.9999 angle. He simply assumes that at every point a ramp is needed that one magically appears and then disappears until needed again.
At least he does admit that he's assuming ramps existed even without ever proposing how such machines could be configured to complete the task in an allotted time. He assumes a level of efficiency that can't be and has never been duplicated in the real world even under ideal conditions using modern materials. He assumes an efficiency which is probably an order of magnitude higher than could be achieved by barefoot bumpkins. Overcoming frictional heat losses is insufficient to stack up 6 1/2 million tons of stone. A boxer must be willing to be punched and a pyramid builder had to be willing to overcome obstacles far greater than heat loss.
Of course being an engineer he didn't address the lack of evidence or cultural context for ramps or the fact the word isn't even attested in the great pyramid building age.
The paper isn't really THAT bad but he dismisses the effort to build ramps with a simple "we don't know what they looked like so they mustta been easy" and of course the paper begins with "They mustta used ramps". At no time does it address the fact that there is no known way to build the ramps only once to build a perfect cladded pyramid. At no point does he address the difficulty of extending any ramping system ever higher on a construction getting ever smaller or needing more men in a shrinking volume. He goes so far as to imply that since the angle of a ramp drops out of equations for the amount of work required that the number of men required for a ramp with a .0001 angle is the same as for a 89.9999 angle. He simply assumes that at every point a ramp is needed that one magically appears and then disappears until needed again.
At least he does admit that he's assuming ramps existed even without ever proposing how such machines could be configured to complete the task in an allotted time. He assumes a level of efficiency that can't be and has never been duplicated in the real world even under ideal conditions using modern materials. He assumes an efficiency which is probably an order of magnitude higher than could be achieved by barefoot bumpkins. Overcoming frictional heat losses is insufficient to stack up 6 1/2 million tons of stone. A boxer must be willing to be punched and a pyramid builder had to be willing to overcome obstacles far greater than heat loss.
Of course being an engineer he didn't address the lack of evidence or cultural context for ramps or the fact the word isn't even attested in the great pyramid building age.