3 ms·
The catenary arch, and this construction method, has an interesting history: >In 1671, Hooke announced to the Royal Society that he had solved the problem of t
by Isamu 8y ago
The catenary arch, and this construction method, has an
interesting history:
>In 1671, Hooke announced to the Royal Society that he had solved the problem of the optimal shape of an arch, and in 1675 published an encrypted solution as a Latin anagram[10] in an appendix to his Description of Helioscopes,[11] where he wrote that he had found "a true mathematical and mechanical form of all manner of Arches for Building." He did not publish the solution to this anagram[12] in his lifetime, but in 1705 his executor provided it as ut pendet continuum flexile, sic stabit contiguum rigidum inversum, meaning "As hangs a flexible cable so, inverted, stand the touching pieces of an arch."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catenary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catenary
- lainga 8y agoHooke was fond of publishing his ideas as ciphers. Ideas in his time were often discovered simultaneously in many places at once, and so I think the purpose was not to convey the solution, but to provide a sort of proof-of-work that he had found a solution without letting anyone else take credit for it. I guess he expected the answer to be discovered somewhere else fairly soon thereafter, maybe by one of his colleagues, at which point he could unscramble the anagram and say "see, I beat you to it".
- jasonmp85 8y agoHeh; I didn't know about this practice! This is amazing, sort of a proto-"posting a shasum to Twitter so you can say 'I KNEW IT' at some point in the future".