ABSTRACT
People are surrounded by natural and designed structures. They live in them, travel in them, eat with them, sleep on them, they contribute to almost every aspect of our lives. Indeed, humans, animals and plants are themselves structures. But few people give much thought to structures until they fail. Forks bend, glasses break, cars are wrecked in crashes, less often buildings and bridges collapse. These structural failures always cause inconvenience that may be minor, such as a broken glass, or major, involving loss of life and large financial cost such as the collapse of a bridge.
