Bridge to the Future

[Reidy]

Found this an apt piece of symbolism, though it dates from the New Deal era. In some respects times haven't changed all that much.

[BaalChatzaf]

The bridge was built in 1940 and the designer wanted to make it a slender beautiful bridge. Alas, he did not (could not) reckon the resonating behavior setup by wind lift on the bridge. The bridge behaved as an airfoil and the lift and drop just hit the resonating frequency of the structure and the oscillations built up and up and the result is what we saw. This was in the precomputer days and there simply was no practical means of modeling the aerodynamic behavior of bridges and buildings. All strength was calculated by the rule of thumb five times the static load. The bridge was located in a area where strong wind currents could develop and turn the bridge into an airfoil.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

Just one more example of how learning frequently takes place--back to the drawing board. The first commercial jet airliner had a fatal flaw. Dams give way. How many filaments did Edison test?

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

Just one more example of how learning frequently takes place--back to the drawing board. The first commercial jet airliner had a fatal flaw. Dams give way. How many filaments did Edison test?

--Brant

about 6000 different materials. But Edison's filament mistakes did not cause any hazard to life and limb.

Ba'al Chatzaf