the.com/beam
A strip of steel or light that holds up either buildings or hope.
means A long, rigid piece of timber, metal, or other material used to support weight in a structure — or a directed ray of light, radiation, or particles; as a verb, to smile broadly or to transmit something.
from From Old English 'bēam,' which originally meant a living tree, then the timber cut from it — a sense still hiding in 'hornbeam' and 'whitebeam,' tree names that carry the old meaning. It's a Germanic word, a cousin of German 'Baum' (tree). The leap from tree-trunk to ray of light came through Old English too, where 'bēam' described a column of sunlight — a shaft of brightness shaped like a beam of wood. The 'broad smile' sense is a later figurative bloom: a face radiating light.
- I-shape genius
- The I-beam wastes no metal where stress is weakest
- Star Trek
- Beaming was invented to dodge expensive landing-craft scenes
- Gymnast width
- Olympic balance beams are just ten centimeters wide
- Light speed
- A laser beam stays narrow across vast distances
- Old English
- Beam once simply meant tree or wooden post
beam me up scotty — star trek catchphrase popularized by william shatner's captain kirk in the 1960s tv series
laser beam — first demonstrated by theodore maiman in 1960 using a ruby crystal
beam bridge — simplest bridge type, like the london bridge built in 1209