The Mathematical Bridge is a wooden footbridge in the southwest of central Cambridge, England.

Although it appears to be an arch, it is composed entirely of straight timbers[4] built to an unusually sophisticated engineering design, hence the name.

[6] Analysis of the design shows that the tangent members are almost entirely under compression, while the radial timbers are almost entirely subject to tension with very little bending stress, or to put it another way, the tangent and radial elements elegantly express the forces involved in arched construction.A popular fable is that the bridge was designed and built by Sir Isaac Newton without the use of nuts or bolts.

Various stories relate how at some point in the past either students or fellows of the University attempted to take the bridge apart and put it back together, but were unable to work out how to hold the structure together, and were obliged to resort to adding nuts and bolts.

When it was first built, iron spikes were driven into the joints from the outer side, where they could not be seen from the inside of the parapets, explaining why bolts were thought to be an addition to the original.