Magnificent constructions made of natural stone used to be built as early as in the ancient times. Despite little knowledge in the field of mechanics, mathematics and engineering of the builders of those days neither the notion of slenderness nor the rules of the work of arch was known at that time the builders intuitively, or thanks to oral transmission of their masters, created constructions which can be admired till today.
Not mentioning the whole complexity of the technology of raising stone buildings, we need to remember that the notion of slednerness was not known at that time. Just because of this building walls or columns could be very difficult, especially when they were getting close to boundary slenderness values (today well known but at that time unknown). No statistical calculations were possible. The builders had to use their intuition (or the knowledge of their masters) because they knew the importance of the height-to-thickness ratio (diameter) of the elements. Arch constructions were made in a similar way. However, the mechanical description of these structures was possible as late as in the Roman times and in the Middle Ages. The main measure was the rise-to-span ratio. The problem of arch could be solved together with the appearance of the notion of derivative which was first presented in the works of Leibniz and Newton.
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