of cat-heads and catenaries

[Laurence Horn]

A synchronicity moment:
I'm pretty sure I've never used the word "catenary" and barely if
ever encountered it before this week's thread.  So I was glancing
through the throwaway "Mileposts" flier provided on every seat of my
Metro-North train en route from New Haven to Grand Central yesterday
and I read a piece about how the railroad is proud to report on its
"ongoing catenary and bridge replacement project", how "two segments
of catenary work are currently in progress", including "catenary and
bridge improvements between Greens Farms and Bridgeport" and
"catenary replacement between Stamford and South Norwalk", eventually
moving on to "replacement of catenary wires from Bridgeport to
Devon", and so on, a project that "will fully replace the original
catenary system first erected in 1907".  I'm sure that's more
"catenary"s than I've ever seen in my life, not counting the last
week of ads-l postings, or am likely to ever see again.  And I note
that Eudora's spellcheck is still unsure that "catenary" is even a
word.

LH

At 7:08 PM -0400 9/15/10, victor steinbok wrote:
>Wilson is absolutely correct, but mathematical use certainly precedes
>any architectural use. If anything, architectural terminology is
>derived from its mathematics.
>
>VS-)
>
>On 9/15/10, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>  On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 5:13 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>
>>  wrote:
>>>  The "hanging chain curve" has
>>>  been known as "catenary" in mathematical parlance
>>
>>  It's also used in architecture. The Arch at Saint Louis is a catenary
>>  curve, often defined as a "hanging-chain curve" when dumbed down for
>>  the polloi.
>>
>>  --
>>  -Wilson
>
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