¶ Wire Wheel
RBF Definitions
“. . . How many restraints do we have to have in order to make a really satisfactory wire wheel that is not going to be oscillating and getting into trouble? We find that we have to have a hub-- there has to be some dimension to it, carrying the load, and three restraints as in the drumhead. . . . We discover that the three restraints make six altogether coming in tangent to the hub so the hub can rotate in place. Therefore we have to split each one into two, and each one becomes tangent to the wheel on one side or the other. We discover that it takes a total of 12 spokes to make stability. The minimum wire wheel has 12 spokes. We are beginning to get into something interesting here-- some basic information of fundamental degrees of freedom of equal and alternate. . . and the first set of really predictable structural relationships.”
¶ Citations
- Oregon Lecture #3, p. 108. 5 Jul’62
