This little book is the condensed version of my 496 - page German book: Die Körpersprache der Bauteile - Enzyklopädie der Formfindung nach der Natur [1] (The Body Language of Structures - Encyclopedia of Design after Nature). In this bigger German book are all the verifications not shown here in this Little book.
This Book: is a digest of a quarter century of tree research at the Karslruhe Research Centre (now KIT) promotes understanding of the body language of trees, explains defect symptoms, their failure, and their sorrows, shows fungal fruit bodies as witnesses in court, discloses universal forms in animate and inanimate nature, saves people from trees and trees from people.
Folk mechanics for all Understand and learn to see the language of forms in nature. Explain, without using formulae, ultimate failure in nature and engineering. Components designed with thinking Tools after nature - easier, more stable, better.
Discover design rules and develop an insight into nature's language of forms. Optimize structural components purely graphically and design without computers. For the engineer, builder, designer, craftsman, student ...
Learning the body language of trees and fungi, and understand their warning signals Close-to-nature biomechanics for everyone Tree preservation with minimized risk for people For all who love trees or are responsible for trees
The Book: - is an introduction to the mechanics of failure - explains the battle of loading against material and form - will allert you to weak places in structures - Shows how cases of damage can be avoided by clever shaping - is the fruit of long-term work at the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH (Karlsruhe Research Centre)
Explained with sensitive words by Pauli the Bear
The Book: - is an introduction to simplified mechanics - presents quantitative Information on trees, their loads, hazards, failure ... - contains the latest Research results from the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH (Karsrluhe Research Centre) - introduces you to a new friend: PAULI THE BEAR
A hedgehog teaches the body language of trees
The Book explains the laws of trees in the language of child through the hedgehog Stupsi. introduces everyone who likes trees or is responsible for trees into the body language of trees. points out dangers wich may result from trees. is the fruit of many years research at the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH ( Karlsruhe Research Center), using the latest measuring and computer techniques. is conceived as a link between science and interested lay people.
The chicken bone you nibbled yesterday and threw away was a high-tech product! Not only that: it was a superlative light-weight design, functionally adapted to its mechanical requirements. No engineer in the world has, as yet, been able to copy this structural member, which is excellently optimized in its external shape and its internal architecture as regards minimum weight and maximum strength. The tree stem on which you recently carved your initials has also, by life-long care for its body, steadily improved its internal and external structure and adapted optimally to new loads. In the course of its biomechanical self-optimization it will heal up the notch you cut as speedily as possible, in order to repair even the smallest weak point, which might otherwise cost it its life in the next storm. This book is dedicated to the understanding of this biomechanical optimization of shape. It is the synthesis of many years of extensive research using the latest computer methods at the Karlsruhe Research Centre to help understand the mechanism of biological self-optimization (adaptive growth) and to simulate it by computer. The method newly developed for this purpose was called CAO (Computer-Aided Optimization). With this method, it is possible to predict the growth of trees, bones and other biological structures from the tiger's claw to the sea urchin's skeleton.
Here are two physicists looking over the fence of physics, getting thrilled by the life and growth of trees, taking an altogether different, exciting view of wood: trees produce wood for their own benefit. They do not live for the benefit of man who builds his world using wood as a raw material. Timber is revealed in a different light, and the reader is taught to stop thinking of it in terms of defective beams and boards. Wood only fails as a part of the living tree. To us, the tree and wood biologists, this new definition is a real, inspiring challenge, which is just what Kubler and Mattheck intended it to be. Their answers may seem too simple or little logical to some of us; but the authors are not at a loss for sound and solid arguments. Their field studies prove the incredible, their hypotheses makes us want to get to the bottom of the un proven unbelievable. The authors' answers and arguments are bold and cour ageous. They arouse our curiosity and force us to fathom the facts. It seems as if Kubler and Mattheck wanted to trick us into believing that trees only live and react following mechanical rules and strategies. To tell the truth, that was what I first suspected the authors of: but I was wrong.