Theory and Experience

A deep, intuitive appreciation of the inherent cussedness of materials and structures is one of the most valuable accomplishments an engineer can have. No purely intellectual quality is really a substitute for this. Bridges designed upon the best ‘modern’ theories by Polytechniciens like Navier sometimes fell down. As far as I know, none of the hundreds of bridges and other engineering works which Telford built in the course of his long professional life ever gave serious trouble. Thus, during the period when French structural theory was outstanding, a great proportion of the railways and bridges on the Continent were being built by gritty and taciturn English and Scottish engineers who had little respect for the calculus.

J.E. Gordon, Structures