how do architects calculate if a structure like a bridge is stable?
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Civil Engineer here. There are plenty of great answers here that dig into a lot of important details, but in the spirit of ELI5, I will try to do specifically that…
Different parts of a structure will be pushed or pulled or twisted in different ways depending on a bunch of different factors. This pushing, pulling, or twisting can cause things to break. An engineers job is to figure out all of the different pushes, pulls, and twists the structure will have to deal with under the most extreme cases, figure out what parts are most likely to break, and then choose the proper shapes, sizes and materials of all the parts to make sure nothing breaks under the most extreme cases.
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