Sydney Opera House Sails
I was utterly gobsmacked to learn recently about Joseph Bertony, the man who designed the crucial arch that made possible the fabulous ‘sails’ for the iconic Sydney Opera House.
What an amazingly inspiring life story! What amazing mathematical prowess he possessed. He did 30,000 calculations by hand for the design of the sails. These were checked later by the only computer available at the time in Australia to deal with these kind of calculations and yes, Joseph’s calculations were accurate. He had not made a single error.
The sails of Sydney Opera House are beautiful. I felt so emotional the first time I saw them. It is wonderful to learn about the engineer. You can read more about Joseph by following this link:
Maths really is such a cool and beautiful subject. Without the maths, nobody would have dared to build it!
Here is a photo I took of the Sydney Opera House showing the sails from the Manly ferry.
