important in engineering (particularly in civil and mechanical engineering) and physics. Background Tensile and compressive stresses increase proportionally with bending moment, but are also dependent on the second moment of area of the cross-section of a beam (that is, the shape of the cross-section, such as a circle, square or I-beam being common structural shapes). Failure in bending will occur when the bending moment is sufficient to induce tensile/compressive stresses greater than the yield stress of the material throughout the entire cross-section. In structural analysis, this bending failure is called a plastic hinge, since the full load carrying ability of the structural element is not reached until the full cross-section is past the yield stress. It is possible that failure of a structural element in shear may occur before failure in bending, however the mechanics of failure in shear and in bending are different. Moments are calculated by multiplying the external vector forces (loads or reactions) by the vector distance at which they are applied. When analysing an entire element, it is sensible to calculate moments at both ends of the element, at the beginning, centre and end of any uniformly distributed loads, and directly underneath any point loads. Of course any "pin-joints" within a structure allow free rotation, and so zero moment occurs at these points as there is no way of transmitting turning forces from one side to the other. It is more common to use the convention that a clockwise bending moment to the left of the point under consideration is taken as positive. This then corresponds to the second derivative of a function which, when positive, indicates a curvature that is 'lower at the centre' i.e. sagging. When defining moments and curvatures in this way calculus can be more readily used to find slopes and deflections. Critical values within the beam are most commonly annotated using a bending moment diagram, where negative moments are plotted to scale above a horizontal line and positive below. Bending moment varies linearly over unloaded sections, and parabolically over uniformly loaded sections. Engineering descriptions of the computation of bending moments can be confusing because of unexplained sign conventions and implicit assumptions. The descriptions below use vector mechanics to compute moments of force and bending moments in an attempt to explain, from first principles, why particular sign conventions are chosen. Computing the moment of force An important part of determining bending moments