Hooke's inverted-catenary principle for arches
Principio del arco como catenaria invertida (Hooke)
- Date
- 1675 (anagrama; resuelto en 1705) · confidence medium
- Place
- London, England, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- Robert Hooke
- Field
- Tools
What was discovered
Hooke stated that the ideal shape of an arch is that of a hanging flexible chain, inverted, because it then works in pure compression. It supplied the key to proportioning masonry arches and domes free of tension.
He published it as an anagram in 1675 (decoded in 1705); David Gregory gave the mathematical proof in 1697 and the link to the catenary was solved by Huygens, Leibniz and Johann Bernoulli. Whether it guided the St Paul's dome design directly is a hypothesis.
What it led to
- graphic analysis of arches and domes by funicular polygons
- the dome of St Paul's Cathedral (Wren)
- Gaudi's funicular models