Talk:Eiffel Tower

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Tower construction material.

Some helpful editor(s) keeps changing the tower constructional material from puddle iron to wrought iron. According to the Societe de l'exploitation de la tour eiffel (i.e. the owners, so they ought to know!)), the material specified and used by Gustave Eiffel was puddle iron. Puddle iron was still a relatively new inovation at the time Eiffel was designing his tower but had been around sufficiently long to have been used in other structures. The confusion may arrise from the similarities between wrought and puddle iron. Technically, puddle iron could be regarded as a form of wrought iron but is in fact a development from wrought iron. The difference lies in the manner in which they are made. Wrought iron contains a relatively large quantity of 'slag' in its makeup. The process of puddling produces a purer form of iron with less slag than the wrought iron process. The difference is that puddle iron is both purer and stronger. It is very easy to tell wrought iron and puddle iron apart. When struck with a hammer, wrought iron emits a distinctive if subdued 'clang'. Puddle iron on the other hand just gives a dull 'thud'. Puddle iron had a relatively short life as a constructional material being supperseeded by the much purer and even stronger steel from the Bessemer process. DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 15:53, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I'll accept puddle iron if you can produce one decent cite for the term which is not a dodgy translation forom French. The puddling process had been in use for secades when the tower was built: see above, it was the main way of purifying pig iron. I'm sure it could be well -puddled or less well puddled, but the fact remains that it is not a term in general use.TheLongTone (talk) 16:01, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

The Société d'exploitation de la tour eiffel claim it is puddle iron. I got this originally from a (good) English translation of information published by the SETE which I cited in the article. This may have disappeared because the info is no longer on the 'net. However, a quick google turned up this([1]), which tells us it's built from puddling iron (just another name). The official website ([2]) doesn't mention the material, but I reckon the average visitor doesn't care.

Wrought iron dates from the 17th century (in one form or another, though the quality improved with the passing years). Puddle iron, was only introduced somewhere around the middle of the 19th century, so would only have existed for less than 40 years before Eiffel dusted off his drawing board. DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 16:23, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Just gone back and found the original citation. It has indeed disappeared and been replaced by the current version in French. It has a lot less detail than the original. DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 16:39, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

All I get when I click on any of the links to the official site of the tower is the homepage, not very satisfactory. My essential point is that the generally used term in English is wrought iron. This is the term used to eg describe Eiffel's earlier constructions such as the Garabit viaduct. Certainly its 'Fer Puddle' in French but I have never ever ever come across the term in anything written in English, and it is also not used in a very detailed history of technology originally published in French. It seems stupid to use an obscure and hardly used term when there is a well-understood word: the London Science museum describe the tower as being of wrought iron, and most of the google hits I get for the term are cut'n'pastes from wp. The only reliable (i.e. written by a n engineeer) mention I got can be found in the section above: here the term is used interchangeably and the writer is not a native english speaker. I really do think the term essentially comes from poor translation.TheLongTone (talk) 16:51, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

[3] is informative. They are specialist ironworkers, and are using the term to distinguish two forms of wrought iron, but what they call puddling iron is nevertheless (as stated in the page) what is ordinarily called wrought iron.TheLongTone (talk) 17:46, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I think that the problem really does arise from the fact that puddle (or puddling) iron is a development of wrought iron. It is produced by a different process (namely a puddling furnace) and it has far less slag in it than traditional wrought iron. It is apparently true that Eiffel used (true) wrought iron in some of his earlier constructional projects but most likely because the new puddle iron was too new (and most likely more expensive!).

The original puddling process was a British invention and was patented in 1784. However, it was crude by modern standards and only worked with certain types of cast iron which were not common. A big improvement was made by adding 'iron scale' to the molten iron. Iron scale is a posh sounding term for rust. The chemical reaction that ensued produced good iron. The best puddle iron came from a German variation of the process in 1850. The process output is a passable replacement for modern day mild steel (which traditional wrought iron could never claim). The process was adopted in England in 1851 and in France in 1855 and was widely used as an alternative to wrought iron, largely because of its greater strength which derived from its lower slag content. Eiffel's tower was leading edge stuff at the time of its construction and Eiffel would no doubt have wanted to use the strongest material available to him.

Wrought iron is in reality, iron that is capable of being wrought (or worked). It's traditionally high slag content gave it a grain in its structure that gave it an inherent weakness. Wrought iron (in one form or another) is as old as the hills. Even the Romans had to wrought their broadswords from workable iron. The best and strongest known examples of wrought iron work are Damascene swords produced somewhere around the 7th century. The method of manufacture of the iron has long been lost and no one today knows how iron with such purity and fine grain structure was made. It was much purer than puddle iron. Wrought iron is not produced commercially today. Anything sold today as 'wrought iron work' is in fact made from mild steel.

'Traditional' (i.e. not puddle) iron has strength, but only in compression. The coarse grain structure made it weak when placed in tension. Puddle iron, by contrast has strength in both compression and tension. Pre mid 19th century iron bridges were usually designed such that their iron componenets were always in compression. Leter bridges were designed with parts in tension. Oddly, they are often described today as being made from wrought iron (but I wonder if this is because your average 'man in the street' has never heard of puddle iron, the term not being in common usage today. DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 12:15, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I know about the properties of different kinds of iron, thank you, and have read a considerable amount about C19 enginering. A clear distinction is indeed made between cast iron and wrought iron, but as I have said many many times I have never come across the term 'puddle iron' in an English work. It is always called wrought iron. The fact that it has been purified by puddling is neither here nor there. There are in fact a large number of terms used within the trade fo different grades of refined iron, which vary regionally wthin England: tey do not include the term 'puddle iron'. The OED des not containe term and I am talking about the full twelv-volumOED which comprehensively covers compound nouns and archaims. 'Puddle Iron' is simply a term generated by lazy translating. Both now at the time it was referred to as wrought iron, as a quick flip through C19 issues of The Engineer' will confirmTheLongTone (talk) 14:09, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Problem here is that your statement above that 'puddle iron' is a mistranslation is presented as though it is your opinion. The Eiffel Tower's operators, the SNETE claim puddle iron in the English version of the literature handed out to visitors. The correctness of the English suggests that the translation was carried out by a native English speaker (and there are plenty of translators that specialise in technical material - I have a friend who does it for the EU). I, and Wikipedia, has to accept the SNETE's authoritiveness over an opinion. Now if you can come up with supporting evidence, then I suspect this discussion is far from over... DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 13:13, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

The term in English would be puddled iron (for which extensive citations can be found, eg http://www.ironbridge.org.uk/uploadedfiles/2004%20Extra%20Special%20Best%20Best.pdf ), not puddle iron. However, although "puddled iron" and "wrought iron" seem to be (non-technically) used interchangably to mean the same thing, puddled iron is one specific form of wrought iron, purified by the puddling process patented in 1784, rather than being produced by earlier methods. The process continued in use to recent times, and so the Eiffel Tower's iron was, in all probability, produced by the puddling process, but the French term "fer puddle" translates into general-use English as "wrought iron". Ghughesarch (talk) 13:43, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

It's my opinion that 'puddle iron' is used by the eiffel tower people because of poor translation: it is an (unverifible) fact that I have never come across the term, andI have read fair bit. As said, it's not in the OED: nor is there a single referenceto the term in the index to The Engineer. I have no problem with the probability that the iron had ben refined by puddling: but (as per previous post) the product of this process is called wrought iron in English. The introduction to the reprint of Eiffel's book on the tower merely calls it iron, which would suggest than the material while undoubtedly high-grade, was not made by any particularly remarkable process, and (as previously mentioned), a book I hav published by the London Science Museum specifically uses the term wrought iron.TheLongTone (talk) 14:25, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘I can't argue with your claim that you have not heard of the term 'puddle iron' or 'puddled iron'. I am an engineer myself and I have heard of both puddle and puddled iron in contexts other than the constructional material for the Eiffel Tower. But then I have spent a good deal of time around material scientists and engineers. Although I have heard both terms, my own opinion here is that 'puddled iron' is the more gramatically correct term. The big problem with translation is that 'puddle' is not the French word for 'puddle' (it is flaque). It has to be assumed that the reference to 'fer puddle' in the French is the adoption of a technical description of the precise iron type, which in this case, the French have unusually adopted an English word (one wonders how that got passed the Académie Français). Thus it would seem that it cannot be a mis-translation because no translation has taken place. DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 14:47, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

I think we are agreed that this is a lingustic rather than a technical issue. I'd agree (strongly) that 'puddled iron' is mo correct than 'puddle iron', my problem with 'puddled iron' bing that it isn't a term in common use, certainly in English English non-specialist contexts. My Eng-French dictionary translates 'fer puddle' as wrought iron'.TheLongTone (talk) 16:44, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

My rather compendious French dictionary doesn't list 'fer puddle' at all (which doesn't surprise me because 'puddle' isn't a French word). For wrought iron, you have to look up the correct French term of 'fer forgé'. I still maintain that 'puddle iron' or 'puddled iron' is a legitimate material description having encountered it in my professional capacity on more than one occasion. Personally: I don't like 'puddle' as an adjective, but I don't have the power to change these things. DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 13:38, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I can live with puddled iron, although I do think that it is using an obscure-ish term that need an explanation rather than the term that is in general use. And after all there mut be dozens of articles that use the word "steel" which is a term so vague as to be almost meaningless. And I do think that if the tower material was that special Loyrette' book on Eiffel would say something about it, rater than merely saying he decided to use iron after rejecting steel as being too flexible. The reprint of Eiffels book on the towr, which has little text, mentions the firm which produced the iron but again does not say anything about it. I know its a weak arguement, but I do think that if the material was that remarkable some mention would hve been made.TheLongTone (talk) 18:39, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I have changed it to puddled iron. Fortunately, it is a wiki link so any one curious as to what puddled iron is can click the link and find out. DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 16:19, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

'Copyrighted' picture in article?

I was reading the article for the first time today and noticed that the French authorities deem any illuminated picture of the tower is copyrighted and thus (quoted from article) "As a result, it is no longer legal to publish contemporary photographs of the tower at night without permission in France and some other countries." I then noticed just above, a picture of a firework show using the tower as a stage (thus illuminating it) taken at night. The image info says it was taken after the ruling was imposed. I figured a potentially copyrighted picture might have been discussed in the talk pages, so checked them, and the archives, before asking about it here.

Archive 2 of the talk pages DOES imply that deletion requests have been rejected. Archive 1 however, contains a interesting discussion here that ends with the statement that "If it is true that US copyright law doesn't respect that kind of copyright, as Ian says, then pictures of the Eiffel Tower at night should be fine, here, as Wikipedia is hosted in the US and adheres to US copyright law." As I understand it, the images hosted on Wiki should also be free and unrestricted (or licensed from) the copyright holder. And since the image info page does not attribute permission from the owner of the tower or the French authorities, and since there are most certainly genuinely unrestricted (since daytime pictures are allowed under French law) it cannot even be claimed as "fair use" under US law. Is that a true understanding?

I guess what I am after is really clarification on whether a copyright holder needs to give permission for a work to be published here, and if so, is that under US or international law, or just US? Are non US copyright holders abroad considered not eligible to assert copyright here? Or is the image info page just incorrect and permission HAS been granted and the above editor was incorrect in saying that US law takes precedence over other peoples copyright material. Thoughts? MrZoolook (talk) 03:29, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

“highest in Europe” claim outdated

Source: http://www.tvtower.ru/52_SmotrovyaPl/eng/ , click “excursions”. Its observation deck at 337 meters is indeed open to the public. Zeus Scrofa (talk) 10:01, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Pedantic Height

I just been to the tower, and on the top most floor they say it's anywhere between 279 and 281. There's a scale there along those numbers. I believe this figure of 273 on wikipedia means the floor right below it, which is covered by windows. Anyone knows what's the correct figure? Should we fix it? --Caue (T | C) 03:03, Thursday 2013-03-21 (UTC)

"Platform of Ostankino tower remains closed"

> The third level observatory's upper platform is at 279.11 m (915.7 ft) the highest accessible to public in the European Union and the highest in Europe as long as the platform of the Ostankino Tower, at 360 m (1,180 ft), remains closed as a result of the fire of August 2000.

It's not closed anymore. I've been there last autumn, and I think it's been open for a while now. Here's their website: http://www.tvtower.ru/52_SmotrovyaPl/ I would edit this myself but the article is locked -- 176.109.79.241 (talk) 21:18, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I removed the outdated bit about the platform of the Ostankino Tower. Ormewood (talk) 20:38, 11 May 2013 (UTC)