One thing to keep in mind is that math is a very basic part of Statics, as it is of all physics and engineering. Since not everyone may be able to understand all of it, we've organized the sections into levels of difficulty in terms of the math used. All the topics not indented explain the basic concepts and use very basic math, if any at all. Those topics indented one space expand on the concepts and use basic Algebra. Obviously, the one topic indented two spaces uses even more math, but it's still no more than first-year Algebra. However, if you want to be able to analyze structures all on your own (in other words, not using our programs), you'll need to understand all the topics here.

Another thing to be aware of is the vocabulary, which is used to make things clearer. It wouldn't help any if everyone had a different name for a force, would it? Along with this, a convention used throughout this tutorial is that "*" means multiplication. This is so it isn't confused with the letter "x". Finally, as you're reading through this, please notify us about any parts that aren't explained clearly enough.