(Hel 3:35)
Today, as I left work to go to my parents' house for a quick visit (largely motivated by the Star Wars lunch box that I had shipped to their address), it finally all came crashing down on me. I left the house before 6 this morning to pick up supplies for a project, had spent virtually all of my free time today (from 7:30 am to 2 pm) coding, and it still was not working right. Tomorrow I have a homework assignment due, and a test, and another test the next day, and...well, it just doesn't get any better. Probably won't until May, when the semester's over. In my mind, I made a very nerdy joke to myself--in engineering, we'd say I'd reached the state of plastic stress.
Let me explain.
No, it takes too long; let me sum up.
For those of you not experienced in strength of materials, first, I'll need to define some terms. Stress is the internal force within an object, divided by the initial cross sectional area of the object. Strain is defined as the elongation of an object due to a force, divided by the original length. These are essentially non-dimensionalized values which are used to define material intrinsic behavior, such as a material's strength, stiffness, and toughness.
Great. So now you're really bored and have no idea what I'm talking about.
Basically, for most materials, and especially for metals, the early region of a stress-strain relationship (that is, for low stresses and low strains) is linear, or nearly so. As stress increases, however, eventually one reaches the material's yield point, where the linear relationship breaks down. The linear region before the yield point is generally referred to as the elastic region, whereas after the yield point it's called the plastic region.
So what? Well, when you stress a material up to any point before its yield point, it makes no real difference in the long run. It just snaps right back to its original shape, like a spring, when you release it. However, as anyone who has played with springs can attest, if you pull it too hard, it just won't ever snap back the same. That's the way I felt this afternoon-I've dealt with a lot of stress as an engineering student, and I've always managed to snap back once the semester's over without feeling damaged; this evening, though, I felt like there was no way I'd get out of this unscathed.
And that's when it hit me:
See, taking things past their yield point isn't always about breaking them. When you do take them past that point, whatever stress you've exposed them to effectively becomes their new yield point. Not only that, but sometimes the shape something comes in isn't the one you need it to be; sometimes the only way to get it to be what you want is forging it into a new shape--taking it well beyond its normal shear strength.
Aren't we all a bit like that? The shape we're in now isn't exactly the one that it ought to be. We have character flaws, weaknesses; we all fall short of where our Heavenly Father would have us be. He wants to help us become more than we are right now, but sometimes that takes pushing us beyond what we would normally think of as our limits, taking us to the point where, like an engineering material, we finally yield to the Hands that would shape us. It's uncomfortable, but if it wasn't, if we weren't pushed beyond our limits sometimes, then I wonder if like an elastically loaded sample we wouldn't just snap back to exactly who and what we were before the Lord put the stress on us in the first place. Realizing this didn't really make my situation any less stressful, but it did bring me some degree of peace, knowing that, as always, He is in control.
Might I add a final thought? The trick with forging and cold working a material to change its strength or shape has to do with understanding its properties. With people, though, we get to choose some of these. We get to decide if we'll be like cast iron, which never really yields before it simply snaps, or if we'll be like a soft plastic, ready to bend any which way the instant that any hand is set to us. I don't think either of these extremes (pure stubbornness, or simply wavering all the time) are the right answer. Rather, as almost always is the case, steel is a good choice, with a nice balance of the ability to withstand low stresses without damage, and the ability to yield itself to a wise, experienced hand, and be shaped into something useful.
Today, as I left work to go to my parents' house for a quick visit (largely motivated by the Star Wars lunch box that I had shipped to their address), it finally all came crashing down on me. I left the house before 6 this morning to pick up supplies for a project, had spent virtually all of my free time today (from 7:30 am to 2 pm) coding, and it still was not working right. Tomorrow I have a homework assignment due, and a test, and another test the next day, and...well, it just doesn't get any better. Probably won't until May, when the semester's over. In my mind, I made a very nerdy joke to myself--in engineering, we'd say I'd reached the state of plastic stress.
Let me explain.
No, it takes too long; let me sum up.
For those of you not experienced in strength of materials, first, I'll need to define some terms. Stress is the internal force within an object, divided by the initial cross sectional area of the object. Strain is defined as the elongation of an object due to a force, divided by the original length. These are essentially non-dimensionalized values which are used to define material intrinsic behavior, such as a material's strength, stiffness, and toughness.
Great. So now you're really bored and have no idea what I'm talking about.
Basically, for most materials, and especially for metals, the early region of a stress-strain relationship (that is, for low stresses and low strains) is linear, or nearly so. As stress increases, however, eventually one reaches the material's yield point, where the linear relationship breaks down. The linear region before the yield point is generally referred to as the elastic region, whereas after the yield point it's called the plastic region.
So what? Well, when you stress a material up to any point before its yield point, it makes no real difference in the long run. It just snaps right back to its original shape, like a spring, when you release it. However, as anyone who has played with springs can attest, if you pull it too hard, it just won't ever snap back the same. That's the way I felt this afternoon-I've dealt with a lot of stress as an engineering student, and I've always managed to snap back once the semester's over without feeling damaged; this evening, though, I felt like there was no way I'd get out of this unscathed.
And that's when it hit me:
See, taking things past their yield point isn't always about breaking them. When you do take them past that point, whatever stress you've exposed them to effectively becomes their new yield point. Not only that, but sometimes the shape something comes in isn't the one you need it to be; sometimes the only way to get it to be what you want is forging it into a new shape--taking it well beyond its normal shear strength.
Aren't we all a bit like that? The shape we're in now isn't exactly the one that it ought to be. We have character flaws, weaknesses; we all fall short of where our Heavenly Father would have us be. He wants to help us become more than we are right now, but sometimes that takes pushing us beyond what we would normally think of as our limits, taking us to the point where, like an engineering material, we finally yield to the Hands that would shape us. It's uncomfortable, but if it wasn't, if we weren't pushed beyond our limits sometimes, then I wonder if like an elastically loaded sample we wouldn't just snap back to exactly who and what we were before the Lord put the stress on us in the first place. Realizing this didn't really make my situation any less stressful, but it did bring me some degree of peace, knowing that, as always, He is in control.
Might I add a final thought? The trick with forging and cold working a material to change its strength or shape has to do with understanding its properties. With people, though, we get to choose some of these. We get to decide if we'll be like cast iron, which never really yields before it simply snaps, or if we'll be like a soft plastic, ready to bend any which way the instant that any hand is set to us. I don't think either of these extremes (pure stubbornness, or simply wavering all the time) are the right answer. Rather, as almost always is the case, steel is a good choice, with a nice balance of the ability to withstand low stresses without damage, and the ability to yield itself to a wise, experienced hand, and be shaped into something useful.
Ray, I was not bored for one second! Thanks for sharing that was amazing!
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading, Rachel. I'm glad you enjoyed.
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