Re: Can this be true?

[John Mallinckrodt <ajmallinckro@CSUPOMONA.EDU>]

In lieu of Perseid viewing last night due to the heavy cloud cover over
Whidbey Island, Leigh and I reviewed some of the current threads on
Phys-L.  In regard to this "perfect string" thread, he and his wife Evelyn
introduced me to a great poem by by Oliver Wendell Holmes called "The
Wonderful One-Hoss Shay."  Bob's post comes closest to capturing the
spirit of the piece.  No synopsis would really do it justice so I will
simply provide a URL and commend it to your attention.

   http://www.ncode.co.uk/histofat/ohossay.html

Enjoy.

John

On Thu, 12 Aug 1999, Bob Sciamanda wrote:

> If you insist on the idealized model of the string as identical masses
> connected by identical springs with identical "breaking tensions", and no
> imperfections, then slowly and continuously stretching this model should
> result in all springs failing at once!

----------------------------------------------------------
 A. John Mallinckrodt        http://www.csupomona.edu/~ajm
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