STATICS AND EQUILIBRIUM

Statics, as its name suggests, is the study of bodies at rest. Those bodies may be acted upon by a variety of forces, but as long as the lines of force meet at a common point and their vector sum is equal to zero, the body itself is said to be in a state of equilibrium. Among the topics of significance in the realm of statics is center of gravity, which is relatively easy to calculate for simple bodies, but much more of a challenge where aircraft or ships are concerned. Statics is also applied in analysis of stress on materials—from a picture frame to a skyscraper.