Abstract
PROF. PEARSON's letter in NATURE of February 20 requires little in the way of reply from me, since my essential point is now admitted, viz. that the stresses and are practically the same in a slab, whether it be free or form part of a complete dam. I should, however like to point out to Prof. Pearson, re his comparison between a parabola and an equivalent sine curve, that at 5° the ordinate is only one-twelfth the maximum ordinate, so that an error of 30 per cent, in this ordinate is one of but 2½ per cent, on the maximum, which would be, accordingly, absolutely negligible in practical engineering. As regards the remainder of his letter, engineers have the support of many eminent elasticians in their refusal to accept his and St. Venant's dictum that the maximum stretch is the proper criterion of the safety of a structure. In any case, the true criterion is a question for the engineer and the physicist, and not for the mathematician. The most recent experiments, I may add, negative Prof. Pearson's views on this head.
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MARTIN, H. The Stresses in Masonry Dams . Nature 77, 392 (1908). https://doi.org/10.1038/077392d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/077392d0
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