Tension is singular. Compression is time. Tension is eternity. Compression is specifically directional. Compression is inherently partial.
Tension is inherently total.
644.00 Limitless Ratios of Tension 644.01 I adopted as a working hypothesis that there is a limit to slenderness ratio of the girth diameter of a compression member in respect to its longitudinal axis and that there is no limit to the slenderness ratio of structures dominated by tensional components. Astronomical magnitudes of structural-system coherence are accomplished by tensionally dominated structural functions of zero slenderness ratio, i.e., by gravitational functioning. This tending of compressionally loaded systems toward arcs of lessening radius is in direct contrast to the contour transformation tending of tensionally dominated structural components, which always tend toward arcs of ever-increasing radius of axial profile. Tensionally dominated patterning is inevitably self-closing and finite. 644.02 Compressionally dominated functions of structural systems are inherently self-diminutive in overall aspect.