616.00 Surface Strength of Structures

616.01 The highest capability in strength of structures exists in the triangulation of the system’s enclosing structure, due to the greater action-reaction leverage distance that opposite sides of the system provide. This is what led men to hollow out their buildings.

616.02 The structural strength of the exterior triangles is not provided by the “solid” quality of the exterior shell, but by triangularly interstabilized lines of force operating within that shell. They perforate the shell with force lines. The minimum holes are triangular.

616.03 The piercing of the shells with triangular holes reduces the solid or continuous surface of second-power increase of the shells. This brings the rate of growth of structures into something nearer an overall first-power or linear rate of gainfor the force lines are only linear. (See also Sec. 412, Closest Packing of Rods: Surface Tension Capability, and Sec. 750, Unlimited Frequency of Geodesic Tensegrities. )