INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF THE THEORY OF STRUCTURES: SEARCHING FOR EQUILIBRIUM

Mechanics and structures have developed rapidly in recent decades. Meanwhile, the research of the history of the theory of structures has been highly concerned. As an interdisciplinary field of scientific history, the history of the theory of structures provides a shortcut to understand the development of structural engineering, the masterpiece of which is a Germany book named The History of the Theory of Structures:From Arch Analysis to Computational Mechanics published in 2002. The English version of this book was published in 2008, and republished ten years later as the 2nd edition, renamed as The History of the Theory of Structures:Searching for Equilibrium, in 2018. In this book, the development of the theory of structures is introduced from a historic-logical perspective. It demonstrates the complicated relationship of the theory of mechanics and structural engineering spanning from the ancient Greece to modern computer age in a roughly chronological order, which could be called the encyclopedia of the development of the theory of structures. We are honored to have read the book and write this article to make a brief introduction to this book with emphasizing a series of important controversies in the history of the theory of structures.