Why do ships have cicular windows,why not square ones?

616 viewsOtherPhysics

Why do ships have cicular windows,why not square ones?

In: Physics

18 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s like standing on a bowl vs standing on a box. If you stand on a cardboard box, there are 4 corners and 4 sides holding you up. If you lean to one side, all of your weight is on that side. If you lean to a corner, theres a lot of pressure pulling the corner apart. If one side buckles, or one corner fails, the box tips over and you fall.

Now imagine standing on a bowl. The weight is evenly distributed around the entire thing. You can put all your weight on one side or the other, but it doesn’t really break that easily.

On a ship, there’s a chance that you face a large wave and it slaps against the window. In a plane, there is a lot of pressure in the cabin pushing outwards. These repeatedly changing pressures can lead to the metal frame around the corners of a window becoming weaker over time, like when you bend a paperclip back and forward until it snaps.

You are viewing 1 out of 18 answers, click here to view all answers.