I wonder if anyone is familiar with a simplified physics of uniform thin planar elastic strips, and wouldn't mind explaining it. (A.K.A. a leaf spring) In particular, suppose you have a thin strip of fixed length that for each endpoint is fixed to the plane at a fixed location, with a fixed tangent direction there. (There's also probably a spring constant to toss into the mix.) Is there a formula to determine the shape of the resulting curve based on the endpoint data? A differential equation it must satisfy? Or at least a way to calculate explicitly a quantity that is minimized by the shape, such as potential energy ? --Dan _____________________________________________________________________ "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that certain je ne sais quoi." --Peter Schickele