Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down
James Edward Gordon spent his career working on materials and aircraft structures, and he wrote Structures as a companion to his earlier book on the new science of strong materials. The book explains the basics of stress, strain, and failure using examples that range from Roman arches and Gothic cathedrals to dam walls, sailing ships, and animal skeletons. Gordon writes with a clear, dry humor and assumes only an interested reader rather than an engineering background. He shows how the same principles govern very different objects and why a working knowledge of structures is a practical part of literacy. The book is widely assigned in engineering courses and is often recommended to anyone curious about how the built and natural world stays standing.
What you might want to know about Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A materials scientist explains, in plain language, why bridges, bones, planes, and ships hold together or break apart.
Asked on KCRW's Bullseye in 2013 what to read to learn engineering, Musk pointed to Gordon's book and called it a really good primer on structural design.
No. Gordon writes for a general reader and explains the key ideas with everyday examples rather than heavy math.
Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down was written by J.E. Gordon, published in 1978 by Penguin Books.
Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down is 424 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down takes most readers 6 to 9 hours to finish.
Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.