Yes! I"ve seen it so many times in docs and movies. It's on my list of places to visit. It must be breath-taking to see in person.

They´ve included Rio´s Christ, the redeemer [by Paul Landowski]. I don´t like it. A dreadful example of art deco, IMO, and the fact that it´s placed atop a mountain does not make it a wonder. We brazilians would be better off with Itaipu dam, which is the same order of magnitude of 3 gorges, and has been around for 30 years, or the Rio-Niteroi bridge.

From the 'official' list I´d go with the Eiffel tower, the statue of liberty, Alhambra, Petra, The great Chinese wall, Neuschwanstein Castle, and I´m divided between the Acropolis and the Taj Mahal.

Yeah, it´s a shame that scientific and technologial wonders, like the ITER and the LHC are not on the list.

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What brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart

Christ the redeemer indeed is a bit a strange entry. The statue is not especially large, or over the top, or extremely beautiful [subjective]. Sure, it's got a huge impact as a landmark, but so do the HOLLYWOOD letters.

As for castles/fortresses, aren't there a lot more possibilities than just Neuschwanstein?

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

The Alhambra itself was built around a castle, but Neuschwanstein is the Romantic epitome -- or stereotype -- of a medieval European castle, and was built with that goal in mind. I heard that Disneyworld's castle was based on it.

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

And it was also a big engineering challenge.

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What brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart

Versailles or Ludwigshafen (I've probably just spelled that wrong) would also be pretty impressive engineering choices, because of the waterworks.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

It´s also strange that big buildings, like the Petronas towers, are not included on the list. They are fully entitled to a place there. The organizers of the contest seem to have an architectural bias, I mean, they´re evaluating architecture, not great engineering feats, like the seven wonders of the ancient world. That would explain the presence of the Sydney opera on the list, which is not a wonder to me, beautiful as it may be.

Well, that´s why I don´t appreciate lists...

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What brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart

The seven wonders of the ancient world were all architectural (or in some cases arguably sculptural) feats.

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

Well, except that it is hard to tell engineering from archicture in the ancient world. They´re equivalent, and they are engineering to me.

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What brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart

I love lists, even when I don't agree with 'em. It's an easy insight into other people's minds.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

My bold. You rang? Who mentioned Three Gorges? That place is a environmental disaster. The link below is my wonder of the world. I wonder why anyone would let me operate it day after day, year after year!

Anyway, for all you rat-racers, this is my getaway.

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Scienara: A rejection of reason and evidence.

So how are things in the Neches River Basin?

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A person's name, or a mark representing it, as signed personally or by deputy, as in subscribing a letter or other document.

Yeah, you may have a point here...

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What brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart

I am sadly, sadly addicted to VH1's list shows. I will watch Michael Ian Black and Hal Sparks love various decades as often as they'll show them to me, even though I don't love the 70s. (VH1 is one of America's great "we used to show music" channels; they're currently fond of nostalgia shows called I Love the <insert decade here>, often part two or three. They also do lists of the 100 greatest fill-in-the-blank. I've wasted many a full day on these shows.)

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

If it makes you feel better, we also have some of "we used to show music" channels. In fact, any music channel nowadays is a WUTSM channel. The running joke here is when tuning in to one of the music channels and they play music, to shout "HEY music!!!!". And when they spot them showing a good song, you're allowed to mark it on the calendar.

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Still flowing downstream. Actually, it rather full due to the inordinate amount of rain in Texas this summer.

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Scienara: A rejection of reason and evidence.

New 'wonders of the world' named Jul 07, 2007 07:29 PM

The pyraminds were grandfathered in.

The BBC report is terrible. How about this:

"The original list of seven wonders was established more than 2,000 years ago by Greek scholars.

It included the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Colossus of Rhodes, the ancient lighthouse outside Alexandria, the great pyramid at Giza - the only survivor - and three other long-vanished edifices."

Errr... and three 'others'. What a load of crap - oh dear, oh dear.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/world/6281284.stm

Nick

Did anyone else notice that most of the nominations weren't, well, new?

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There is no dark side of the moon really, as a matter of fact it's all dark - Pink Floyd, The Dark Side Of The Moon

Only the Great wall and maybe Petra are real wonders, IMO. What goes on in the minds of these folks is unfathomable.

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What brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart

For me - a Wonder has to be something that takes your breath away - makes you simply go wow. I can say I have experienced that three times

1/ The Sydney Opera House. I can still remember clearly the first time I saw the building after the tiles where installed

2/ Monument Rock, in Kansas USA - as some one who was with us said. Gods been playing again

3/ Eagle Nebula image taken by Hubble - often referred to as the Pillars of creation

That stupid statue . . . .

No, I don't remember what I voted for long months ago. I do remember that I didn't vote for that. Probably Petra, though.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

IMO, Machu Pichu, the Great Wall of China, Petra and the Taj Mahal fully deserved to win. Chichen Itzá and the Colosseum maybe, but they don't seem as impressive as the others.
A shame they didn't pick Angkor Vat. Then again, I never voted...

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

My pair of modern wonders would be the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center and New York City's skirt-raising Fuller Building.

I can't believe that statue made it. Personally, I would have chosen the Hoover Dam over the statue

Pete

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PJE

There's so much I don't know about astrophysics. I wish I had read that book by that wheelchair guy.

I said it before, and this discussion has solidified it. Nobody really knows what the intent of the new list is. The original one was the "must sees" of the time. Basically a travel brochure.
So; since this is a popularity contest, it's going to create a lot of controversy, thus, a lot of media coverage, which is probably the end goal anyway.

Now if the media can cover it right. I heard on TV (Fox, of course) that the Great Wall of China is the only survivor of the previous list.
But then again, this morning, they said yesterday was 7/7/7, and even mentioned "Sunday".

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

I assume they did the same in many other countries, but a local Belgian paper made a list of Belgian Wonders. They did not mean 7 Belgian things which should be considered world wonders, just the 7 best from and for belgium only. In contrary to the wonders of the world selection, they clearly stated the criteria. Which I forgot. But anyway, something about structures made by human "hands" (optionally using tools, obviously), breathtaking/inspiring/extraordinary effort or beauty, and saying something about who we are. They finished the article with "this is a list that could be expanded". Nice ending to both start and stop some discussion on it .

One example of possible expansion:

They did not include this one in the list.

They did include Antwerp Central Station though, so I'm happy.

As for the 7 wonders of the world:

Pyramids of Cheops (the whole site or just the largest one?) agreed, in fact the whole site including sphinx, or just include the whole culture as an entry. Too bad it didn't go through all these years without damage, but that's life for you and the fact that so much remains is part of the wonderous nature of the structures.

I see Petra, and certainly it's main building teh Treasury, as comparable to the Egyptian culture which I just listed, so agreed . OK, some Egyptian buildings were larger, there's more of them too, but that doesn't make Petra any less special and beautiful. And then there's the location, which greatly adds to the breathtaking effect. And it's not just the Treasury, the whole site has very nice and impressive buildings, again comparable to Egyptian sites.

Great Wall: quite clearly a wonder of the world. The length, people, the length.

Christ Redeemer statue? Erm, no. Never did anything to me, nor do I find it particularly breathtaking: it doesn't seem to be particularly difficult to build it as nice or large as it is. I've seen far more beautiful statues, so what remains is that it's not too small. OK, but it's not like it's HUGE.

Machu Picchu is a wonder because of it's location: beautiful and extreme. The city itself isn't the pinnacle of its kind, it's the whole package that counts . Maybe they used the same reasoning for Christ Redeemer, but I disagree on that. Sure the view is nice, but was it that extreme to put the statue there? No. So instead of amazing object, extreme and beautiful location, you only have nice view. Hm.. Anyway, next.

Chichen Itza pyramid. Quite impressive. But 30m high including the temple on top, built somewhere between the 11th and 13th century. Cheops main pyramid: built around 2570 BC (more than 3500 years before chichen itza), originally 146m high, until 1311 the highest building in the world (that's for nearly 4000 years!!). THAT is a wonder. I'd rather replace Chichen Itza with Angkor Wat. IMO a more impressive city.

Taj Mahal: surely a really impressive piece of art. Not exactly my style and hence not my favourite, but because it's strong point is subjective beauty and apparently many people do think it's is beatiful, I understand that it is considered a wonder.

Colosseum: 2000 years old now, biggest ancient "stadium", huge, room for 50.000 people, could open or close its roof (!), beautiful (though somewhat damaged now, no surprise given its age and, just like Cheops, the combination of natural disasters and people seeing ruins as cheap resources for building materials). OK as an entry.

As for the importance of age: IMO old isn't necessarily amazing. The tools available at a given time are though, in order to judge how much effort it cost to build something. For example, I would be happy with a Wonder that isn't even 40 years old: the Apollo 18 Saturn V. (I take apollo 18, because it still is completely existing, albeit spread over multiple locations). Originally a craft, being stored and displayed for 40 years while knowing 100% sure it would never be used again has made it a monument, a sort of statue. And what a statue. Now, say 50 years in the future we build an expendable launcher of roughly saturnV dimensions and power, I wouldn't call it a wonder. By then, we'll have had SaturnV, AresV, possibly other equally large or larger launcher. So then, SaturnV being "older" IS of importance to me, because for StarunV it was an amazing, new step, while for a future launcher it's still impressive, but known and mastered technology. Just like the first huge skyscrapers are some sort of miracles, while your average, uninspired but maybe equally large modern skyscraper just is big .

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

*yawn* Ancient garbage replacing ancient garbage.

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The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.

OK then, we're BAUT, the epitome of freedom. As long as the mods agree.

Time for the All New 7 wonders of the world! Structures/buildings no more than 100 years old and located below the edge of space. Hence no ISS or Hubble, sorry. And no vehicles, not even those put firmly fixed on display.

OK, let's see. I'll start with some suggestions.

* The Chrysler building. When finished in 1930, the tallest building in the world at 319m. Construction involved the top "folding out" of the rest of the tower. IMO the most beautiful skyscraper ever built. Decorated with Chrysler references both on the exterior and interior. Features a beautiful lobby in the same art deco style as the exterior. Even the elevator doors are magnificent example of art deco design.

* Viaduct de Millau. Bridge over the river Tarn in France. A very light, natural bridge that does not interfere with the landscape in which it is placed. The largest vehicle bridge in the world, featuring the tallest bridge pylon, mast and the highest road deck, second highest bridge deck. Opened in 2004

* Large Hadron Collider, Genève. Particle accelerator placed 100m (50min, 175 max) beneath Genève, on the French/Swiss border. Total length of the circular tunnel is 27km. The tunnel dwarfs the Genève airport. Accelerates particles upto almost light speed (27 km circle in 88 microseconds...). To be finished next year, it will be the most powerful accelerator in the world.

OK, who continues .

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

<100 years old, human built?

Golden Gate Bridge

Sydney Opera House

Keck observatory, Mauna Kea

Mt Rushmore (although I wish they wouldn't have built it)

I suppose we'd have to pick a dam, but the large ones tend to cause lots of problems, so I'm not nominating one

That big ferris wheel thing in London (I forget what it is called)

The Chunnel

One of the really long bridges in Denmark, the one from jutland to the island that Copenhagen is on, although I have never seen the one to Sweden

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"I'm as accurate as any psychic. And I'm a cartoon!" -- Squidward

"Arrrgh, the laws of physics be a harsh mistress!" -- Bender