Tacoma-Narrows Bridge
The collapse of the Tacoma-Narrows Bridge is certainly one of the most spectacular and, compared to the possibilities available at the time, one of the best documented disasters in engineering history. Even today, almost eight decades after the collapse of the bridge, the breathtaking pictures are still used very often. Although the physical phenomena that led to the collapse have been known and explained for many decades, the Tacoma-Narrows-Bridge persists as an example of a resonance catastrophe. This is wrong, at least as far as the final reason for the collapse is concerned. There are two reasons for this, a technical one and a human one, but more about this later. Furthermore, the question arises whether a comparable event could also happen today.
