Customer Reviews

Science of Structures and Materials (Scientific American Library)

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I used to beleve that questions like that are not possible to answer without mathematics and advanced physics. Gordon does it, and he does it very good. If you like aha-experiences, read this book!

Though this book like its stablemate on Strong Materials was written some time ago I think it should be essential background reading for all teachers of science and engineering.
The writer has a real gift of making quite difficult subjects interesting, and with humourous though relevant asides. Professor Gordon had wide experience in many fields and this shows... even people with no mathematical knowledge can read with profit... especially interesting is the section on how accidents happen, sometimes when a person with insufficient technical knowledge tries to "strengthen" a structure and ends up by weakening it. See for instance the WWI Fokker D8 monoplane and the heating vessels towards the end of the book.
The writer also explores the strengths of natural creatures (see "How to design a Worm")
Compulsive reading!

This book is mainly a re-hash of Prof. Gordon's "The New Science of Strong Materials or Why You Don't Fall through the Floor", with more pictures and some new annecdotes.
As I already owned the above-mentionned work, this book was a disappointment.