Note 625 — Chapter XVI · ON FORM AND MECHANICAL EFFICIENCY
Reading edition
Our problem is analogous to Dr Thomas Young’s problem of the best disposition of the timbers in a wooden ship (Phil. Trans. 1814, p. 303). He was not long of finding that the forces which may act upon the fabric are very numerous and very variable, and that the best mode of resisting them, or best structural arrangement for ultimate strength, becomes an immensely complicated problem.