Reply to post by Scott, on February 26, 2000 at 11:07:17:
The principle applies even if the jar does not fill with sediment. You see it every time you drive over a culvert. Put a pipe on top of the ground, apply a load, and it crushes. Backfill around it with soil, and the load forces are distributed more uniformly to the fill, preventing crushing. Part of the load is distributed directly to the fill, part is carried to lower levels through the sideways pressure on the fill part way down the side of the object. The simple physics of hollow cylinders (and part of Mattheck's work, too). And it does apply to non-round objects, although they may be more prone to breakage.
