Thanks to Derek Waters for the image of the spline and weights in
Figure \ref{intro-mechanical}. The photograph of architectural
ironwork shown in Chapter \ref{space-chapter} is by Terry Ross of
drawmetal.com, as is the original work.

This historical sketch in Chapter \ref{hist-elast-chapter} draws
heavily on Truesdell's history in an introduction to Ser 2, Volume X
of Euler's \emph{Opera Omnia} \cite{Truesdell60}. Indeed, a careful
reading of that work reveals virtually all that needs to be known
about the problem of the elastica and its historical development
through the time of Euler.

I am deeply grateful to Alex Stepanov, Seth Schoen, Martin Meijering
and Ben Fortson for help with the translations from the Latin in
Chapters \ref{hist-elast-chapter} and \ref{hist-euler-chapter}. Special
mention is also due the excellent ``Latin words'' program by William
Whitaker, which lets anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of Latin and
a good deal of patience and determination puzzle out the meaning of a
text. Of course, all errors in translation are my own responsibility.

Patricia Radelet has been most helpful in supplying high-quality
images for James Bernoulli's original figures, reproduced here as
Figures \ref{bernoulli-clxx} and \ref{fig-elastica1694}, and for
providing scans of the original text of his 1694 publication.
 
Thanks also to the Stanford Special Collections Library for giving me
access to Prof. Forsythe's notes and correspondence, which were
invaluable in tracing the influence of the elastica through early work
on non-linear splines.

Thanks to Karl Berry for supporting the development of the Inconsolata
font, and for building the \TeX\ configuration files so it could easily
be used in this thesis.

I gratefully appreciate Prof. Norimasa Yoshida for a careful reading and
helpful comments on an earlier draft of this thesis.

And of course, many thanks are due to my thesis committee for
providing feedback invaluable for refining earlier drafts, and
especially my advisor, Prof. Carlo S\'equin.