science

Giant Rock

Giant Rock is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Giant Rock rather than just read about it. In short: Giant Rock is a large freestanding boulder in the Mojave Desert near Landers, California, and the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms located at DD coordinates 34.33287, -116.38875 covering 5,800 square feet (540 m2) of ground. Giant Rock is the largest freestanding boulder in North America.

Key takeaways

Giant Rock belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Giant Rock to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Giant Rock from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Giant Rock is a large freestanding boulder in the Mojave Desert near Landers, California, and the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms located at DD coordinates 34.33287, -116.38875 covering 5,800 square feet (540 m2) of ground. Giant Rock is the largest freestanding boulder in North America. It is also purported to be the largest free standing boulder in the world, but this assessment has been recently questioned by the description of an apparently larger boulder in the Corani district in Peru. In the 1930s, Frank Critzer moved to Giant Rock. Inspired by desert tortoises that dig holes in which to cool themselves, Critzer dug out a home on the north side of the rock using dynamite. He engineered a rainwater collection system and a tunnel for ventilation. The underground home was reportedly never hotter than 80 °F (27 °C) and never cooler than 55 °F (13 °C). Critzer built an airstrip on the nearby ancient lakebed, which averaged a plane per day by 1941. Critzer perished in a self-detonated dynamite explosion in his underground rooms on July 24, 1942, while being investigated by local police. In the 1950s, Giant Rock was a gathering point for UFO believers. It is located on land which was at that time leased by George Van Tassel, a friend of Critzer's, a purported flying-saucer contactee and organizer of UFO conventions. In 1947, Van Tassel, a former aircraft inspector, leased the property from the Bureau of Land Management and left Los Angeles and moved to Giant Rock with his wife and three children. During the early 1950s, Van Tassel began hosting Friday night "meditation" sessions in Critzer’s former underground home, where he claimed to receive telepathic communications from "compassionate Venusian extraterrestrials." Van Tassel also built the nearby Integratron and a cafe, store, gas station, and the Giant Rock Airport, which he operated from 1947 to 1975. The Giant Rock Airport was certified by the Federal Aviation Administration for emergency use by commercial airliners. In the early 1960s it experienced traffic of about one flight per day. Between November 1961 and October 1962, it served as the launch site for helium-filled balloons used by R. F. Miles, Jr. to measure the density of neutrons in the Earth's atmosphere at altitudes of 8,000–115,000 feet (2,400–35,100 m). In early 2000, Giant Rock fractured in two, revealing an interior of white granite. The exterior surface of the rock has been since partially covered in graffiti.

In popular culture Fictionalized versions of Giant Rock and Van Tassel figure heavily in the plot of the novel Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru. Australian artist Tina Havelock Stevens won the Blake Prize with a video work depicting her drumming at the site. Live at Giant Rock, a live album by Yawning Man, was recorded with the band performing near the boulder. Giant Rock plays a major role in the science fiction book Stolen Skies by Tim Powers.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Giant Rock

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Giant Rock claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Giant Rock before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Giant Rock ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Giant Rock

In research: Giant Rock appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Giant Rock in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Giant Rock is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Landforms of San Bernardino County, California, Mojave Desert, Rock formations of California, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Giant Rock outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Giant Rock in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Giant Rock means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Giant Rock out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Giant Rock in simple terms?

Why does Giant Rock matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Giant Rock?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Giant Rock.