Interesting. Easy to understand. Somewhat old fashioned writing style. ( )

Very interesting book, I learned a lot. Gordon's prose is readable. He is also opinionated and throws in just the right number of anecdotes. I read this book while also watching the "Great Courses" class, "Understanding the World's Greatest Structures," by Stephen Ressler, and think those lectures covered a lot of the same material but with more compelling examples, buildings and bridges. ( )

Structures, or Why Things Don't Fall Down
J.E. Gordon
May 22, 2013

A Folio reprint of a 1978 book on engineering, mostly engineering materials. The author seems to be an engineer possibly summing up his career, with a direct and opinionated voice. He explains technical details artfully, describing Young's modulus of elasticity, mathematics of cantilevers, and the desirable properties of wood. The volume has excellent, but too few photographs, and good stories of structures that were unexpectedly good and spectacularly bad. ( )

Indeholder "List of Plates", "Foreword", "Acknowledgements", "Chapter 1 - The structure of our lives - or how to communicate with engineers", "Part One - The difficult birth of the science of elasticity", "Chapter 2 - Why structures carry loads - or the springiness of solids", "Chapter 3 - The invention of stress and strain - or Baron Cauchy and the decipherment of Young's modulus", "Chapter 4 - Designing for safety - or can you really trust strength calculations?", "Chapter 5 - Strain energy and modern fracture mechanics - with a digression on bows, catapults and kangaroos", "Part Two - Tension Structures", "Chapter 6 - Tension structures and pressure vessels - with some remarks on boilers, bats and Chinese Junks", "Chapter 7 - Joints, fastenings and people - also about creep and chariot wheels", "Chapter 8 - Soft Materials and Living Structures - or how to design a worm", "Part Three - Compression and Bending Structures", "Chapter 9 - Walls, arches and dams - or cloud-capp'd towers and the stability of masonry", "Chapter 10 - Something about Bridges - or Saint Bénezèt and Saint Isambard", "Chapter 11 - The advantage of being a beam - with observations on roofs, trusses and masts", "Chapter 12 - The mysteries of shear and torsion - or Polaris and the bias-cut nightie", "Chapter 13 - The various ways of failing in compression - or sandwiches, skulls and Dr Euler", "Part Four- And the Consequence was...", "Chapter 14 - The philosophy of Design - or the shape, the weight and the cost", "Chapter 15 - A chapter on Accidents - a study in sin, error and metal fatigue", "Chapter 16 - Efficiency and Aesthetics - or the world we have to live in", "Appendix 1 - Handbooks and formulae", "Appendix 2 - Beam theory", "Appendix 3 - Torsion", "Appendix 4 - The efficiency of columns and panels under compression loads", "Suggestions for further study", "Index".

Vældig lærerig og underholdende bog om hvad der holder gulvet oppe under fødderne på folk og taget fra at falde ned ( )

: A book that simplifies the basics of engineering and I still found it tough reading. I enjoyed the examples he gives, but the general concepts in dry form were hard to comprehend. It still is worth reading in only that it makes you think of the way things are made; natural and man-made. ( )