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. 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. 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'. at once entertaining and informative, providing absorbing interest for both expert and student'.I am very much aware that it is an act of extreme rashness to attempt to write an elementary book about structures. 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. His book, Structures or Why Things Don't Fall Down, is also published in Penguin. 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. 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. 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'. For several frustrating years he worked in industry on the strength of glass and the growth of strong 'whisker' crystals. 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. He designed the sailing rescue dinghies carried at one time by most bomber aircraft.

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 took a degree in naval architecture at Glasgow University and worked in wood and steel shipyards, intending to design sailing ships.

Structures or why things don t fall