"in principle"???  yes it is calculable.  I was offered instruction on some of the stress formulas at age 15 in shop.  over the past 200 years geeks have destroyed enough material samples to publish thick tables of stress/strain ratings.   yes if you have a 2x4 of oak, you know at what point the tension will cause the oak to flex beyond recovery ("fail").  if it is anchored at each end and the stress is on the beam it will probably fail by splitting in the middle.  if it's cantilevered it may fail at the anchor point.  there are different formulas and the method of anchoring is a factor.  the formula is set up to solve for stress / strain, and when that ratio is > the material's stress/strain ratio it will fail. Usually 15% safety margin is figured in, so you want a stress/strain solution not more than 84% of the maximum tolerance.

and when you have a truss, you will have stresses shared at angles and at multiple points.  but there's always a most probable point of failure.  We wouldn't go putting 500 tons of concrete and steel 1000 feet in the air with 40,000 people inside if we didn't know these things!

that is an unjust law! also that would ban beekeeping and arc welding in public

well it doesn't completely hide the face, yo can still see the eyes and the bridge of the nose

so beekeepers are banned in Belgium?

there is a constant speed of light in every medium

it never exceeds 186,282 miles per hour

i think if you went to spear a whale, Hayden would spear you

and I think she could take you

i think Dr. Seuss said it best in Blue Star, Red Star

would it respond simultaneously though? I've seen a bullet fired into an apple and there was a definite ripple visible on the film

man guess he found out there were some people he hadn't pissed off yet

he better stay clear of Hayden Panetierre

mountain dew is easier on your stomach than coffee

i'm pretty sure he meant they were asian horse archers

it was colorado not arizona.

the proof was the candidate [Romanoff] said the deputy chief of staff of the White House offered him 3 differnet jobs to quit the primary.

And then the White House Press Secretary [GIbbs] said nothing wrong happened, just that the deputy chief of staff mentioned 3 different jobs he could take if he left the primary.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/press-briefing-press-secretary-robert-gibbs-632010

Q    Thank you, Robert.  I have a few questions about the Romanoff matter, following up on your e-mail this morning.  Did the President sign off on the White House