Crowning Summaries

How do you think about the structure, economy and construction technique of a spider’s nest? It carries the weight of the spider. How much the self weight of the nest itself? How about the trussed configuration that the spider has devised?

How do you think about a tree trunk creeping towards the sky? How do yo think the cross sectional change of a tree trunk with height? Or a tree branch spanning across a large area? Both are a class of structures supported at single point, no doubt. The cross section gets reduced gradually, almost nothing at the end and maximum at the support. How accurate the continuous variation of cross sectional area with span? Who designed all those in nature? We perhaps follow nature. We also design columns and attempt to reduce the section at the upper stories. Or reduce the cross section of a cantilever beam away from the support. Histories of the environment that a tree experienced in the past are sometimes read from the cross section of a tree log.