Earthquake-resistant construction

Abstract

Civilized man has been relatively successful in understanding, predicting, and safeguarding himself from most of the dangerous phenomena of nature. For example, the average Montanan has an elementary understanding of why a winter storm occurs, is usually informed of its coming, and generally is prepared to meet the resulting dangerous conditions. Man has not been as successful in understanding or predicting the natural phenomenon known as earthquake. His efforts to safeguard his structures - and thus himself - vary from poor or nonexistent to overdone and even wasteful. A better common level of understanding would help the picture and it is toward this end that this paper is written.