The chicken bone you nibbled yesterday and threw away was a high-tech product Not only that: it was a superlative light-weight design, functionally adapted to its mechanical requirements. No engineer in the world has, as yet, been able to copy this structural member, which is excellently optimized in its external shape and its internal architecture as regards minimum weight and maximum strength. The tree stem on which you recently carved your initials has also, by life-long care for its body, steadily improved its internal and external structure and adapted optimally to new loads. In the...

The beauty of a knotty oak tree is different from that of a lovely flower. It is the rough beauty of an old soldier's face showing the traces of wind and sun, of harm and of victory, bearing the scars of bygone battles. It is different from the fragile, delicate beauty of a young girl which is evident to anyone at first sight. The beauty of an old and crippled tree is hidden unless perceived by the alert eye which is able to fancy or rather discern the hard trials of life the tree has ex- perienced. Contemplating trees in this way is not much different from busying oneself with physiognomies,...

Here are two physicists looking over the fence of physics, getting thrilled by the life and growth of trees, taking an altogether different, exciting view of wood: trees produce wood for their own benefit. They do not live for the benefit of man who builds his world using wood as a raw material. Timber is revealed in a different light, and the reader is taught to stop thinking of it in terms of defective beams and boards. Wood only fails as a part of the living tree. To us, the tree and wood biologists, this new definition is a real, inspiring challenge, which is just what Kubler and Mattheck...