A permanent alteration of form limits the strength of materials with regard to practical purposes, almost as much as fracture; since, in general, the force which is capable of producing this effect is sufficient, with a small addition, to increase it till fracture takes place.
— Thomas Young, A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts (1807)
Source: https://books.google.com/books?id=0p1BAAAAIAAJ
Quoted by Robert Henry Thurston in Materials of Engineering (1884), Part III.
Topics: learning