SCIENTISTS USE “THINKING RECTANGLE” TO DISCOVER CONCRETE JUST NEEDS MORE TRASH IN IT
In a breakthrough moment that has revolutionized construction technology forever, MIT researchers have discovered that the key to making concrete better for the environment is basically throwing your garbage in it. Holy sh!t, we’ve been doing it wrong all along.
NERDS STARE AT WHITEBOARD FOR MONTHS, FINALLY REMEMBER COMPUTERS EXIST
For weeks, a team of MIT researchers stood helplessly in front of whiteboards covered in incomprehensible scribbles, wondering how to make concrete less of an environmental disaster, before someone finally said, “Wait, what if we asked one of those silicon know-it-alls to help?” This brilliant f@#king epiphany reportedly occurred after the team had spent approximately 6,000 hours drawing chemical formulas and muttering “but what if we add… less cement?”
TRASH: IT’S WHAT CONCRETE CRAVES
The team, led by postdoc Soroush Mahjoubi, used machine learning to scan through “millions of pages” of scientific literature, discovering that 87.3% of the world’s junk can apparently be ground up and thrown into concrete, making it somehow both “hydraulically reactive” and “pozzolanically awesome.”
“We basically asked our digital thinking rectangle to find stuff we could throw in concrete instead of cement,” explained Mahjoubi, while gesturing wildly to a PowerPoint with the words “JUST ADD GARBAGE” written in Impact font. “Turns out, nearly everything in your house could theoretically replace cement if you grind it up fine enough. Your coffee mug? Concrete ingredient. Your grandmother’s antique vase? Concrete gold. Your kid’s pottery project? Structural gold, baby!”
ANCIENT ROMANS WERE RIGHT ALL ALONG, YOU MODERN IDIOTS
In what experts are calling a “no sh!t” moment, researchers discovered that ancient Romans had already figured this out 2,000 years ago by adding broken pottery to their concrete mixtures.
“The Romans built the Pantheon without having a single laptop,” notes Professor Obvious Hindsight, who was not involved in the research but feels compelled to point out historical facts everyone already knows. “Meanwhile we needed a supercomputer to tell us that maybe mixing in some broken IKEA dishes might improve our concrete. What the f@#k have we been doing for two millennia?”
CIRCULAR ECONOMY: JUST ANOTHER WAY OF SAYING “PUT YOUR TRASH IN THE SIDEWALK”
Industry experts are already hailing this as the breakthrough that will revolutionize infrastructure by giving discarded materials a “second life” as part of our buildings, bridges, and sidewalks.
“We’re very excited about the possibility of walking on your old broken toilet for the next 50 years,” said Dr. Concretely Speaking, CEO of BigBuildStuff Inc. “By our calculations, we can reduce emissions by 42.69% just by grinding up everything in the nearest landfill and calling it ‘alternative cementitious material.'”
RESEARCHERS PLAN TO FEED MORE INFORMATION INTO THE KNOWLEDGE RECTANGLE
The MIT team is now planning to “upgrade the framework” of their AI system, which is science-speak for “we’re going to keep asking the computer what else we can throw in concrete until it tells us to stop.”
“AI tools have gotten this research far in a short time,” says Professor Elsa Olivetti, senior author on the work, while suspiciously avoiding eye contact. “Without our digital assistant constantly reminding us of obvious solutions, we might still be staring at that whiteboard, wondering if maybe we could use less cement by using… less cement.”
According to sources familiar with the research, the next phase will involve the AI evaluating even more potential concrete ingredients, including crushed dreams, the ashes of failed startups, and all those unread emails in your inbox marked “important.”
In a related development, civil engineers worldwide are reportedly slapping their foreheads in unison, muttering “You mean we could have just been putting broken sh!t in there this WHOLE TIME?”
