Probabilistic resolution of the twentieth century conundrum in elastic stability

► Paper presents the history of most challenging conundrum in shell buckling. ► Paper presents history of probabilistic resolution of the above conundrum. ► Paper brings counterexamples to ergodicty assumption often made in literature. ► Paper shows that real imperfections are neither stationary nor ergodic. ► Paper presents a way of incorporating imperfection measurements into design process of shells.