Coulomb ushers in the scientific approach
Abstract
As we have seen, throughout the long period of Romanesque and Gothic churches their builders had to rely on ‘warnings’: when something collapsed or went wrong it meant that they had overstepped certain permissible limits. This is what happened to the vaults of Cluny III and Beauvais, to the domes of St. Peter’s in Rome and St. Sophia in Istanbul and to other illustrious buildings. They knew that certain forces could bring down vaults or crack domes and that the earth could topple retaining walls or slide down into cuttings, but little headway had been made towards the scientific understanding of the forces involved.
Fields of Study & Subjects
History of Science and Medicine
Historical Philosophy and Science
Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis
Publication details
- Journal / source
- CRC Press eBooks
- Pages
- 57–61
- Publication date
- 19 January 2026
- Language
- EN
- Document type
- Book chapter