National Bridge Day

Today is National Bridge Day. I’m not sure if this is in celebration of bridge the game, or bridge the infrastructure, so I’m going to go with the latter…mostly because they’re more fun and produce way better pictures! So… 

Bridges are “a structure built to span physical obstacles such as a body of water, valley, or road, for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle.” Interestingly, as Wikipedia brings up, the first bridges were a product of nature itself, as logs would often fall over a dip or stream. However, it was in the 13^th century BC that the Greeks began building these structures in order to provide a means for their chariots to cross whatever appeared to be preventing them from travelling in the first place. Nowadays there are plenty of manmade bridges all over the world. The largest known bridge is Beijing’s Danyang–Kunshan Grand Bridge, measuring at a whopping 540 700 feet! 

Aside from the length of a particular bridge, and the variations of such, bridges can also be found in several different types! There are:

·      Beam

(Image found at:http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/build-bridge-p3.html)

·      Truss

(Image found at:http://www.sci-experiments.com/BayBridgeTutorial/BayBridgeTutorial.html)

·      Cantilever

(Image found at: http://photoeverywhere.co.uk/britain/edinburgh/cantilever_bridge.jpg)

·      Arch

(Image found at: http://www.bootsnall.com/articles/10-02/13-famous-bridges-around-the-world-that-you-can-climb-or-walk-across.html)

·      Tied Arch

(Image found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Pitt_Bridge)

·      Suspension

(Image found at: http://www.nevworldwonders.com/2013/09/preview-golden-gate-bridge.html)

·      Cable-stayed

(Image found at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/build-bridge-p3.html)

·      And my personal favourite:

(Image found at: http://fansided.com/2013/07/17/the-big-lebowski-and-jeff-bridges-best-movies/)

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