Seeing further: the story of science & the Royal Society — 10 HENRY PETROSKI

1. 1. Thomas Telford's Menai Strait Suspension Bridge, completed in 1826, was a record-shattering 580-foot span and an aesthetic paragon, but its wooden roadway was susceptible to wind damage.
2. 2. Robert Stephenson's Britannia Tubular Bridge used hollow wrought-iron tubes to span the Menai Strait, relying on scale-model tests by William Fairbairn and empirical formulas by Eaton Hodgkinson due to lack of structural theory.
3. 3. Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Royal Albert Bridge at Saltash combined arch and suspension principles to be lighter and more economical than Stephenson's tubular design, which Brunel called 'a magnificent blunder'.
4. 4. The Tay Bridge collapse in 1879 was re-examined using high-resolution scans of historical photos, revealing brittle fractures in cast-iron lugs due to fatigue from repeated movement, leading to a revisionist explanation.
5. 5. The Quebec Bridge collapsed in 1907 during construction due to underestimated weight and calculation errors, killing 75 workers; it was redesigned as a heavier cantilever and completed in 1917.
6. 6. The Golden Gate Bridge's chief engineer Joseph Strauss excluded designing engineer Charles A. Ellis from credit after tensions over design details; Ellis's involvement was only revealed decades later.
7. 7. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed in 1940 due to torsional oscillations caused by wind, after months of undulations; it was the most widely viewed structural collapse until the World Trade Center.
8. 8. The London Millennium Bridge, a 'blade of light' design by engineers Ove Arup, architect Norman Foster, and sculptor Anthony Caro, closed three days after opening in 2000 due to excessive sideways movement under crowds.
9. 9. The Millau Viaduct, a cable-stayed bridge designed by architect Norman Foster, is often attributed to him, but the structural design was by French engineer Michel Virlogeux, who is largely forgotten.
10. 10. John Lucas's painting 'Conference of Engineers at Britannia Bridge' symbolizes the team effort behind engineering projects, but omits key contributors Fairbairn and Hodgkinson, suggesting it depicts a typical site meeting rather than all responsible parties.