Science & Tech
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When completed in 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge set records for both the longest bridge span and the tallest bridge towers. Its honeycomb-legged towers combined strength with lightness, enabling them to bear the tremendous weight carried by the cables at the tops of the towers and to resist horizontal forces from wind and earthquakes. Each tower contains over a million rivets, with red-hot rivets driven through holes in the steel and hammered into a second mushroom-shaped head to clamp the pieces together. Like a tree trunk that is not solid wood yet remains strong and light, the towers’ cellular construction provided the needed strength while using a minimum amount of steel.
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