Sunday, April 10, 2011
Newsreel of the 1940 Tacoma Narrows suspension bridge dramatic collapse
On November 7, 1940 the Tacoma Narrows suspension bridge dramatically crashed into Puget Sound. after swaying and twisting in the wind. At the time of its construction (and its destruction) the bridge was the third longest suspension bridge in the world in terms of main span length, behind the Golden Gate Bridge and the George Washington Bridge. The collapse was attributed to the matching frequencies of the wind and the bridge, and became a standard example in physics textbooks of elementary forced resonance, with the wind providing an external frequency that matched the natural structural frequency. I've seen the newsreel before and am always mesmerized by it. The only victim of the disaster was a dog named Tubby.
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