The Library Shelf

The latest two sets of Proceedings of the above Society contain a useful variety of papers; there are five papers on photoelastic matters, nine on electrical resistance strain‐gauge work, six on various aspects of dynamic or shock loading and ten on miscellaneous subjects. In each class the papers may be divided into two categories; those in which the main interest lies in the development of technique, and those in which technique per se takes second place and the chief interest lies in the problem to which the technique is applied. It is probably fitting that papers for a Society ostensibly devoted to ‘experimental stress analysis’ should have a preponderating number in the first category, and this indeed is what we find; for four out of the five papers on photoelastic matter deal essentially with technique, as do five out of six of the dynamic loading papers and seven (or eight) out of the ten miscellaneous papers. The exception is the set of papers on the use of the resistance strain‐gauge, where only four out of nine are preoccupied with the development of technique. The inference is that straingauge technique is gradually becoming standardized, but that the techniques of photoelasticity and of dynamic load measurement are still in the process of active development. One cannot refrain from speculating whether, one of these days, when all current methods have been standardized, the Society, now so virile, may not die from lack of proper nourishment apart from an occasional morsel in the form of a miscellaneous paper; for papers whose main interest does not lie in the experimental technique employed belong by rights to the particular learned Society in whose field the problem presents itself.