Abstract: The four answers to the prize question of the Brussels’ Theresian Academy of 1783 on the development of a theory of beams, formulated by Viscount de Nieuport, reveal that the modeling of the wooden beam and of the side-conditions, necessary to apply the new mathematic calculus on problems of statics, constituted a challenge to the existing, intuitive, practice-based artisan's culture, equally important to that of the mathematics.
