Bridges vault valleys and leap rivers, but how? British civil-engineering professor Blockley answers in this "attempt to help nontechnical readers understand the technical issues bridge builders have to face." Emanating from the engineer's abiding anxiety to ensure against structural failure, such issues are successfully clarified in the author's engaging presentation. Essentially, the bridge engineer calculates the physical forces acting on the materials and shapes used to construct a bridge, but, as Blockley iterates throughout, engineering knowledge about how a bridge will perform has finite or indeterminable dimensions. The bridge collapses he describes were typically caused by some previously unrecognized behavior, and the collection of behaviors learned through bridge-building experience infuses Blockley's arrangement of bridges into four classifications—beams, arches, trusses, and suspensions. If we cross bridges unmindful of the forces they tame, Blockley's text, sketches, simple equations, and photographs instill appreciation for a physical dynamism that the engineer aspires to control. Also discussing the architectural beauty of bridges, this is a model explanation of technological design for a general audience.
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