Between Mechanics and Architecture

Entre Mecanique et Architecture

edited by Patricia Radelet-de Grave and Edoardo Benvenuto

Towards a History of Construction

edited by Antonio Becchi, Massimo Corradi, Federico Foce and Orietta Pedemonte

Essays on the History of Mechanics

edited by Antonio Becchi, Massimo Corradi, Federico Foce and Orietta Pedemonte

Essays on the History of Mechanics In Memory of Clifford Ambrose TruesdelI and Edoardo Benvenuto

Edited by Antonio Becchi, Massimo Corradi, Federico Foce, Orietta Pedemonte

With the support of the Associazione Edoardo Benvenuto and of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Genova e Imperia

Springer Basel AG

Editors: Editorial Consultant:

Antonio Becchi, Massimo Corradi

Federico Foce, Orietta Pedemonte

Facoltä di Architettura

Stradone di Sant' Agostino, 37

16123 Genova

Kim Williams

Kim Williams Books

Via Mazzini, 7

50054 Fucecchio (Florence)

ITALY

k.williams@leonet.it ITALY

Between Architecture and Mathematics: The Work of Clifford Ambrose TruesdelI and

Edoardo Benvenuto

International Symposium at Genoa, 30 November - 1 December 2001

With the collaboration of: CIT Italia - Agenzia di Genova

Local Organizing Committee: Danila Aita, Giovanna Aita, Antonio Becchi,

Giovanni Benvenuto, Massimo Corradi,

Federico Foce, Orietta Pedemonte

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress, Washington D.C., USA

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek

Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;

detailed bibliographic data is available in the Internet at <http://dnb.ddb.de>

ISBN 978-3-0348-9435-7 ISBN 978-3-0348-8091-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-0348-8091-6

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in other ways, and storage in data banks. For any kind of use, permission of the copyright owner must be obtained.

©2003 Springer Basel AG Originally published by Birkhäuser Verlag in 2003 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2003 Printed on acid-free paper produced from chlorine-free pulp Cover Illustration: Edoardo Benvenuto

Sponsored by: Accademia Ligure di Scienze e Lettere

Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Genova e Imperia

Universitä degli Studi di Genova

Facoltä di Architettura

Facoltä di Ingegneria

Dipartimento di Scienze per I'Architettura

Dipartimento di Ingegneria Strutturale e Geotecnica

Rotary Club della Cittä di Genova

With the patronage of: Comune di Genova

ISBN 978-3-0348-9435-7 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 www.birkhauser-science.com

Table of Contents

Preface 7

JACQUES HEYMAN

Truesdell and the History of the Theory of Structures 9

GLEB MrKHAILOV

Development of Studies in the History of Elasticity Theory and StructuralMechanics 21

Lours L. BUCCIARELLICoping With Error in the History ofMechanics 39

KARL-EUGEN KURRER

The Development of the Deformation Method 57

SANTIAGO HUERTA

The Mechanics ofTimbrel Vaults: a Historical Outline 89

PATRICIA RADELET-DE GRAVE

The Use of a Particular Form of the Parallelogram Law of Forces for theBuilding ofVaults (1650-1750) 135

JACQUES HEYMAN

Rose Windows 165

SANDRO CAPARRINr

Early Theories ofVectors 179

GrULIO MALTESE

The Ancients' Inferno: The Slow and Tortuous Development of 'Newtonian'Principles ofMotion in the Eighteenth Century 199

PrERO VrLLAGGIO

A Historical Survey ofImpact Theories 223

DAVID SPEISER

What Can the Historian of Science Learn from the Historian of Fine Arts? ... 235

Index of Names 251

PREFACE

The history of mechanics, and more particularly, the history of mechanicsapplied to constructions, constitutes a field of research that is relatively recent.Be that as it may, it has attracted illustrious scholars, beginning in the nineteenthcentury with Saint-Venant, Todhunter and Pearson and continuing in thetwentieth century with Duhem, Mach, Dugas, Timoshenko, Truesdell, Heyman,Szabo, Charlton, Benvenuto and Di Pasquale, to name only the greatest. In thelast twenty years, the works of these authors have led new generations of scholarsto delve into themes of research that involve diverse disciplines - frommathematics to construction, from architecture to geometry, from the strength ofmaterials to the mechanics of solids and structures - leading to the formulationof the research project Between Mechanics and Architecture, begun by EdoardoBenvenuto and Patricia Radelet-de Grave on the occasion of the XlXthInternational Congress ofHistory ofScience (Saragozza 1993) and continuing withsymposiums in Genoa (1996), Liege and Louvain-Ia-Neuve (1997) and Pescara(1998).

After the death of Edoardo Benvenuto (1940-1998) and Clifford Truesdell(1919-2000), the Associazione Edoardo Benvenuto per Ia ricerca sulla scienza el'arte del costruire nelloro sviluppo storico (founded in 1999) decided to dedicatean international symposium to their contributions to the field of the history ofmechanics. The close ties between the two scholars, born on the occasion of thepublication of the book by Edoardo Benvenuto, An Introduction to the History ofStructural Mechanics (New York: Springer, 1991), induced the Associazione toorganize the meeting during which the papers in this volume were presented.The meeting took place in Genoa, 30 November - 1 December 2001, at theFaculty of Architecture, where Benvenuto taught "Structural Mechanics" untilhis death and where he was the for eighteen years. Participating in thesymposium were Louis L. Bucciarelli (Cambridge, Massachusetts), SandroCaparrini (Turin), Jean Dhombres (Paris), Jacques Heyman (Cambridge, UK),Santiago Huerta (Madrid), Karl-Eugen Kurrer (Berlin), Giulio Maltese (Rome),Gleb K. Mikhailov (Moscow), Patricia Radelet-de Grave (Louvain-la-Neuve),David Speiser (Basel) and Piero Villaggio (Pisa).

The present volume, which is part of the series Between Mechanics andArchitecture, together with the recent publication Towards a History ofConstruction (Basel: Birkhauser, 2002), is intended as an homage to the twoeminent scholars who made a determinant contribution to the history ofmechanics.

We thank the Faculties of Architecture and Engineering, the Departments ofSciences for Architecture and Structural Engineering and Geotechnics of the

8 M. Corradi, A. Becchi, F. Foce

University of Genoa, the Ligurian Academy of Science and Letters, theFoundation of the Cassa di Risparmio di Genova and the Rotary Club of the cityof Genoa for having collaborated on the organisation of the symposium. Wewish also to thank Kim Williams for her amenability and her patience in thepreparation of the texts for this volume.

The editorsGenoa, 15 January 2003