The ancient Romans would have the civil engineer stand under the bridge they'd just built while a Legion marched over it. That's why Roman structures are still around today!
>The ancient Romans would have the civil engineer stand under the bridge they'd just built while a Legion marched over it. That's why Roman structures are still around today!
Can't speak for the romans, but his seems legit enough, and predates the romans by quite a bit:
Hammurabi's code:
> If a builder builds a house for a man and does not make its construction firm, and the house which he has built collapses and causes the death of the owner of the house, that builder shall be put to death.
> If it causes the death of the son of the owner of the house, they shall put to death a son of that builder.
A more verifiable story in a similar vein would be Frank Lloyd Wright standing under an exemplar of his "dendriform" columns, developed for the Johnson Wax Headquarters in Racine, laughing and whacking it with a cane as it was undergoing a loading test for the building code enforcement officers.
A similar story comes from World War II where an alarmingly high number of parachutes were failing to open when deployed. They started picking random chutes and their packer and sent them up for a test drop. The malfunction rate dropped to near zero.
Heard a similar myth about a Danish king. We was tired of cannons blowing up so he ordered the manufacturer to sit on top of the cannon when it was fired the first time.
The comparison is odd to me. Somehow building bridges seems more of an exact science to me than making cars drive themselves. I sure wouldn't step on a bridge if its engineer doesn't dare going under it. Shit is supposed to stand up.
