Highly revered traditional boat building techniques, all around the world, almost universally created leaky, structurally unsound objects which were entirely patched up with caulking to prevent them sinking, since there was no rational understanding of how boats should be designed.
Although people more often complain that we pay no respect for the past, the evidence points to the fact that the opposite is true – i.e. we often tend to respect things and accept them as true specifically because they are old – such as the current version of a religious text such as the bible versus countless other original versions.
As a dedicated futurist, I am always on the lookout for examples of old is bad, and a good one is in J.E. Gordon’s classic structural engineering book, The New Science of Strong Materials. Gordon stripped away sacrosanct notions in the name of science and reason a way that is sadly uncommon today. He pointed out that gothic cathedral structural gymnastics were often an inelegant structural mess when compared to elegantly balanced dome structures such as Hagia Sophia, but he was especially scathing about boat design.
“In spite of all the centuries which he had to learn about it the traditional shipwright seemed to be unable to understand about shear.”
Gordon was originally a naval architect and It turns out that centuries old traditional wooden boat construction was based upon poor engineering instinct. Boats were designed like primitive beams with no account of increased stresses around openings. More importantly there was no concept of shear stresses which would open up gaps between planks causing leaks, in other words there wasn’t even any consideration of beam theory itself which takes into account shear stresses within the web of a beam. Boats were like five-bar gates without the diagonal member and angled iron bracings were first introduced as late as 1830.
Gordon contrasts with fashionable writers such as George Dyson who documented the years he had spent designing traditional Aleut sea kayaks noting their superior evolved design.
Aleutian sea kayaks may be a special case, a niche exception that tests the rule, however, until the early 20th century boats were badly designed.
David, I’m a little confused by this entry. Sure things were done poorly in ancient (or even relatively recent times), but so what? Things are still done poorly today (check our economic situation). Boat-builders were respected craftsmen in their time, possessing knowledge and skill that few others had.
First, I think that it’s sad that craftsmanship in general is looked down upon these days. “Fine art,” “science,” etc., hold their weight against these more practical technologies, that are more relevant in ages and places where function is more important than form.
But second, I think the interesting question raised is – why didn’t the old ship-makers know about shear? Where was the breakdown in cross-communication between ship architects and building architects?
And where are the communication breakdowns today?
Hi Josh, I guess I should clarify what I was trying to say. Some things like boat building (but perhaps not banking) are done much better today than they ever were and the reason is science rather than craftsmanship. Perhaps the craftsmanship and skill of ancient boatbuilders *should* be looked down on because it didn’t work. This is the idea which is contentious.
As for a communication breakdown, there wasn’t one as such. Dynamic wind loads on a building are less than for a ship in water. Although diagonals were used in the arched structures of gothic cathedrals, but this was to balance inward and outward dead loads rather that dynamic ones. In Wells Cathedral for example, masonry cross bracing was used to stop the building collapsing inwards after overdoing the buttressing which was supposed to stop it falling apart. A masonry diagonal is no use in a dynamic structure since it falls apart in tension.
Buildings were all about compression stresses whereas boats need to consider tension and compression. To summarize, there is almost nothing a boat builder can learn from a stone mason.
As for bankers, well the problem is that finance has been based upon deterministic closed systems when the science points heavily to chaotic open ones – but that’s a whole other story, I guess.
The general point is that a reaction against science has been fashionable for the last 30 years, perhaps now is the time to throw out feng shui along with the alchemy of collateral default swaps.
Hahaha…well said!
I guess it seems strange to me to cast aspersions on ancient boat-builders when there’s no way they could have had the detailed understanding of shear that we possess today through computer-aided models…
I’m no enemy of science – though I don’t see it a the end-all of knowledge. People must understand the technologies being used around them. One of the biggest problems we face today is the shallow understanding of science and mathematics among a majority of the populace (at least here in the US). It makes banking scams, credit card debt, and diet pills much more prevalent than they might otherwise be.
Thanks for the clarification, David! I’ll definitely check out that book!
check this out…
this is mine…