Solid mechanics developed in the outpouring of mathematical and physical studies following the great achievement of Newton in stating the laws of motion, although it has earlier roots. The need to understand and control the fracture of solids seems to have been a first motivation. Leonardo da Vinci sketched in his notebooks a possible test of the tensile strength of a wire. Galileo, who died in the year of Newton’s birth (1642), had investigated the breaking loads of rods under tension and concluded that the load was independent of length and proportional to the cross section area, this being a first step toward a concept of stress. He also investigated the breaking loads on beams that were suspended horizontally from a wall into which they were built.
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