Civil engineers

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"And if you should say that the shells were carried by the waves, being empty and dead, I say that where the dead went they were not far removed from the living; for in these mountains living ones are found, which are recognisable by the shells being in pairs; and they are in a layer where there are no dead ones; and a little higher up they are found, where they were thrown by the waves, all the dead ones with their shells separated, near to where the rivers fell into the sea, to a great depth; like the Arno which fell from the Gonfolina near to Monte Lupo, where it left a deposit of gravel which may still be seen, and which has agglomerated; and of stones of various districts, natures, and colours and hardness, making one single conglomerate. And a little beyond the sandstone conglomerate a tufa has been formed, where it turned towards Castel Florentino; farther on, the mud was deposited in which the shells lived, and which rose in layers according to the levels at which the turbid Arno flowed into that sea. And from time to time the bottom of the sea was raised, depositing these shells in layers, as may be seen in the cutting at Colle Gonzoli, laid open by the Arno which is wearing away the base of it; in which cutting the said layers of shells are very plainly to be seen in clay of a bluish colour, and various marine objects are found there. And if the earth of our hemisphere is indeed raised by so much higher than it used to be, it must have become by so much lighter by the waters which it lost through the rift between Gibraltar and Ceuta; and all the more the higher it rose, because the weight of the waters which were thus lost would be added to the earth in the other hemisphere. And if the shells had been carried by the muddy deluge they would have been mixed up, and separated from each other amidst the mud, and not in regular steps and layers — as we see them now in our time."

- Leonardo da Vinci

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"These facts and figures must serve as an eye-opener to the people of Mysore. I refer to them here not because I have any hopes of our reaching the levels of prosperity of the two Colonies, but because it will do us good to know what organization and human endeavour are capable of achieving under favourable conditions. / The nationality of our people rests on a religious and fatalistic basis, not on an economic basis, as in the West. There are still people among us who believe that the golden age was in the past, the world is on the down-grade and the old-word conditions might yet be reproduced some day. The Hindu ideal of life is that this world is a preparation for the next and not a place to stay in and make ourselves comfortable. We are devoted to past ideals, although, out of necessity or from prospect of personal gain, we have partly taken to Western methods of work and business. There is a yearning for the old ideals and a half-hearted acquiescence in the new and, on the whole, the genius of the people is for standing still. / If we are to follow in the wake of other countries in the pursuit of material prosperity, we must give up aimless activities and bring our ideals into line with the standards of the West, namely, to spread education in all grades, multiply occupations and increase production and wealth. All other activities should conform themselves to the economic idea. [148-149]"

- Mokshagundam Visveshvaraya

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"Heinz Isler's involvement in the development of the design for the "Steinkirche" ... could not be more different from that of the church at Lommiswil. ...[A] competition... [was] won by Werner Schmidt... Isler was consulted as an expert in shell design and construction. To understand the structural behaviour... and, in particular, the effect of these glazed openings, Isler returned to his tried and tested methods using physical models. ...To transfer forces across the openings in the shells, the sides of the cut were to be linked by steel bars, whilst the glazing was installed in the plane of the cut surfaces of the removed wedges. ...Isler made plaster casts and Styrofoam models... From these he cast thin latex rubber shells complete with the cut-out openings and with flexible cords linking the two sides... These rods were disposed in a diagonal "zig-zag" configuration similar to that of the lacing on a traditional leather football or shoelaces... When the rubber surface was loaded it was easy to see how the flexible cords behaved. ...compression near the top of the ovoid forms and in tension towards the base. In the final scheme the forces are carried by hightensile bars... To enable the same anchorage detail to be used in all locations, Isler developed a "brush anchor"... Heinz Isler's... method for determining the shape of his shells was to accurately measure a plaster cast of the form."

- Heinz Isler

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