  We consider a suspended elastic rod under longitudinal compression. The
compression can be used to adjust potential energy for transverse displacements
from harmonic to double well regime. The two minima in potential energy curve
describe two possible buckled states at a particular strain. Using transition
state theory (TST) we have calculated the rate of conversion from one state to
other. If the strain $\epsilon$ is between $\epsilon_c$ and $4 \epsilon_c$, the
saddle point is the straight rod. But for $\epsilon_c < 4 \epsilon_c$, the
saddle is S-shaped. At $\epsilon_c = 4 \epsilon_c$ the simple TST rate
diverges. We suggest methods to correct this divergence, both for classical and
quantum calculations. We also find that zero point energy contributions can be
quite large (as large as $10^9$) so that single mode calculations can lead to
large errors in the rate.
