I am very much aware that it is an act of extreme rashness to attempt to write an elementary book about structures. Indeed it is only when the subject is stripped of its mathematics that one begins to realize how difficult it is to pin down and describe those structural concepts which are often called' elementary'; by which I suppose we mean 'basic' or 'fundamental'. Some of the omis sions and oversimplifications are intentional but no doubt some of them are due to my own brute ignorance and lack of under standing of the subject. Although this volume is more or less a sequel to The New Science of Strong Materials it can be read as an entirely separate book in its own right. For this reason a certain amount of repetition has been unavoidable in the earlier chapters.
I have to thank a great many people for factual information, suggestions and for stimulating and sometimes heated discussions. Among the living, my colleagues at Reading University have been generous withhelp, notably Professor W. D. Biggs (Professor of Building Technology), Dr Richard Chaplin, Dr Giorgio Jeronimidis, Dr Julian Vincent and Dr Henry Blyth; Professor Anthony Flew, Professor of Philosophy, made useful suggestions about the last chapter. I am also grateful to Mr John Bartlett, Consultant Neurosurgeon at the Brook Hospital. Professor T. P. Hughes of the University of the West Indies has been helpful about rockets and many other things besides. My secretary, Mrs Jean Collins, was a great help in times of trouble. Mrs Nethercot of Vogue was kind to me about dressmaking. Mr Gerald Leach and also many of the editorial staff of Penguins have exercised their accustomed patience and helpfulness. Among the dead, l owe a great deal to Dr Mark Pryor - lately of Trinity College, Cambridge - especially for discussions about biomechanics which extended over a period of nearly thirty years. Lastly, for reasons which must surely be obvious, l owe a humble oblation to Herodotus, oncea citizen of Halicamassus.
James Edward Gordon was born in 1913. He took a degree in naval architecture at Glasgow University and worked in wood and steel shipyards, intending to design sailing ships. On the outbreak of the Second World War he moved to the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough, where he worked on wooden aircraft, plastics and unorthodox materials of all kinds. He designed the sailing rescue dinghies carried at one time by most bomber aircraft. He later became head of the plastic structures sections at Farnborough and developed a method of construction in reinforced plastics which is now used for a number of purpose in aircraft and rockets. For several frustrating years he worked in industry on the strength of glass and the growth of strong 'whisker' crystals. In 1962 he returned to government service as superintendent of an experimental branch at Waltham Abbey concerned with research and development of entirely new structural materials, most of which were based on 'whiskers'. He was Industrial Fellow Commoner at Churchill College, Cambridge, and became Professor of Materials Technology at the University of Reading, where he was later Professor Emeritus. He was awarded the British Silver Medal of the Royal Aeronautical Society for work on aircraft plastics and also the Griffith Medal of the Materials Science Club for contributions to material science. His book, Structures or Why Things Don't Fall Down, is also published in Penguin. Professor Gordon died in 1998. In its obituary The Times wrote of him that he was 'one of the founders of materials science' and that he wrote 'two books of outstanding literary quality ... at once entertaining and informative, providing absorbing interest for both expert and student'.
