Talk:Stairway

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Hi, Samw,

Do you realize that there are two articles about "stairway" and you have edited/created both of them?
see www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stairway of 29k
and the other is www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stairs of 15k.

I'll leave it to you to check them out and do what is necessary. Hope you won't mind my bringing this to your notice ;-) Actually it looks like some kind of fork.

Dieter Simon 22:42, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Contents 1 Wretched and deplorable reference cited 2 Lego Picture 3 History of stairs 4 Alternating stairs patent date 5 Deadly Stairs 6 Straight Stairs and Modern Homes 7 Futurama reference 8 Futurama

[edit] Wretched and deplorable reference cited

In the "Ergonomics and Building Code Requirements" [[1]] section, footnote no. 4 hyperlinks a 1911encyclopedia.org entry:

"Jacques Francois Blondel . . . was the first known person to establish the ergonomic relationship of tread and riser dimensions[4]."

The link is to http://97.1911encyclopedia.org/S/ST/STAIRCASE.htm, and the resultant page is quite possibly the grossest dogs' breakfast of html formatting I've yet encountered anywhere on the net (the text all-too-obviously scanned and imported by an extraordinarily obtuse bot) -- which might be forgivable if it contained coherent or valid information. Regrettably, the writing wanders into ludicrous bombast and is fraught with errors; to wit, the simple arithmetic in the examples of stair rise and run is just plain wrong.

As to why the author of the sentence in question felt compelled to fertilize (and/or decorate?) her/his assertion with such spurious manure, one can only guess. Similarly, it is fatuous nonsense to entertain (even for a moment) the proposition that an 18th Century Frenchman was the 1st person -- anywhere on the planet since the beginning of time -- to have considered the ideal proportions for stairs. Ironically, such overweening pedantry spreads the indelible pall of dubiousness over an otherwise serviceable entry.

--Teknozen 17:44, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Cite your sources. As you assert, it's not obvious Blondel established stair ergonomics and I felt it important to give a reference. If you have a better reference than the 1911 Britannica, by all means replace the reference. If you have references that suggest stair proportions were established by someone prior to Blondel, by all means remove Blondel and replace it with the name of whoever was earlier. Please cite your references though. It may well be Blondel was the first to write this down. Thanks. Samw 01:18, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Lego Picture

Anybody noticed that the space saver staircase isn't symmetrical? Flume 02:27, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Can you please clarify your concern? The yellow/blue stairs is "normal". The red/green stairs are the "alternating tread" stairs and the correct foot must be used. Samw 04:10, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Samw, if you imagine climbing the alternating stair, you will see that stepping up from the left foot to the right foot, you move forward one 'lego unit' (Sorry, but don't know what else to call it). Stepping up again from the right foot to the left, you advance *two* lego units. It is not symmetrical left-to-right. Using this stair would be uncomfortable and dangerous. It does not reflect the construction of a real-life alternating stair, where you would advance an equal amount for each step, despite having to use the correct foot on the correct step. Flume 03:11, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Hey I think you're right! I was focussed on the vertical symmetry that I didn't notice the horizontal assymetry. I flagged the section as inaccurate and notified the original provider of the model and photo. You're welcome to build a better model and replace the photo.  :-) Samw 04:28, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I uploaded a new model. Thanks for notifying me. -- Diomidis Spinellis 16:07, 30 January 2006 (UTC) 16:07, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for sorting it out! Flume 19:02, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History of stairs

Hello,

It would be very interesting to read something about history of stairs - whether it is known when they were invented (and eventually who invented it), etc.

sirix

Per above, even the "Jacques Francois Blondel" reference is disputed, so I doubt there is an agreed upon history. Furthermore, stairs were probably invented in prehistory (that is before the invention of writing so there's no record of its invention). The sequence is probably: climbing stick -> single pole ladder -> double pole ladder -> stairs (where the two poles of the ladder are converted to stringers). I don't think there would've been a single inventor or an established date. Samw 00:20, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes some history would be interesting and helpful for a link i want to create from archaeology. good article BTW Boris 23:28, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not a historian/archaelogist so I didn't feel comfortable writing about the evolution of stairs from climbing sticks. Be bold and add a section! Samw 00:25, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I would if i knew anything about the history of stairs myself but i will add a section stub as you suggest, thou I feel like i am despoiling a beautiful piece of work Boris 12:08, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alternating stairs patent date

Does anyone know why the patent for alternating stairs appears to have been granted nearly 100 years after a published discussion? --njh 02:58, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I deleted this text from the article:

Alternating tread stairs were invented by James Lapeyre. He received US patent 4,509,617 on April 9, 1985.

The claim of invention seems suspect, per the other reference. The patent info is accurate, but since I don't see patent information in other articles about similar structures (e.g. ladder, escalator), I thought I would remove it. —Kymacpherson 02:50, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Why would you remove verifiable information? You're welcome to add commentary on the validity of the patent but the fact of the patent is correct. If other articles have relevant and verifiable patent information, that should be added as well. If there's no objection, I'd like to add this factoid back. Samw 04:12, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

My preference is to remove it; in my opinion its trivial information, and not relevant to a worldwide audience. But I see you've done a lot of work on this page so I'll leave it to your judgment. —Kymacpherson 05:51, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I'm not American. In my industry (software), and I suspect most industries, getting a US Patent is critical simply because of it's economic impact. A local patent may be worthless in relative terms. Regardess, IMHO, patents are never trivial. That any object at one time had a patent, should be part of any comprehensive history on that object. Samw 04:34, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deadly Stairs

There isn't anything in the article about how many deaths and injuries occur from people falling down stairs.

"There are approximately 287,000 stair accidents in dwellings requiring hospital treatment annually in the UK and 500 fatalities." http://www.rmd.communities.gov.uk/project.asp?intProjectID=11177

--80.47.203.53 10:47, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to enter these data in the article as the source material seems fine. Don't frget to cite the source in the section you are adding. Dieter Simon 01:49, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Straight Stairs and Modern Homes

Under "Forms", the article states that straight stairs are "not often used in modern homes" because of several listed disadvantages. But is this really true, worldwide, across a large variety of home styles? I don't have much experience with brand-new home construction, but at least in the few-decade-old housing stock where I live (outside Washington, DC), a common colonial floorplan involves a central straight staircase. I find it hard to believe that the disadvantages (which are minimal, depending on the layout) have only been recognized in the past few years.

Does anyone have a citation that supports the proposition that straight stairs have recently become less common? If not, I propose simply listing the possible disadvantages without making any claims about the frequency of straight vs. landing stairs.

Krinsky 05:19, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Futurama reference

I did a bit of google searching and found that the episode of Futurama that mentions stairs the most is "I, Roommate" which refers to the M. C. Escher painting Relativity). See this pdf file for details. I've added the links in the relevant articles so it's easier for future readers to explore these things. Should the painting Relativity be mentioned in this article? I can't visualise what the article's talking about so I can't add a description of it. Ascending and Descending, another Escher painting, is already mentioned in the stairway article and is IMO more relevant. Then again, I know nothing about art, can't see it, and have never engaged with a Futurama episode, so who am I to judge these things? :) Graham87 08:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, a google search for "a case that contains stairs" returns nothing so that part must have been misquoted. There seem to be many websites with full transcripts of Futurama episodes and they would turn up in google results. Graham87 09:44, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Futurama

Sorry a friend who is a futurama fanatic told me about it. also sorry about anyone who i have written on the talk page of. I haven't been here very long and am still getting used to proper editing and etiquette.