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Thermal stresses due to arbitrary temperature distributions are calculated for beams of I‐section or of multicell sections which can be considered to be built up from I‐section units. Stress distributions are presented graphically for a wide range of the parameters involved. It is shown that for a high‐speed aircraft the thermal stresses alone could produce plasticity in a homogeneous structure.

EVER since the inception of the hcavier‐than‐air flying machine, the need to refuel in flight has been apparent. The cartoon reproduced in fig. 1 was first published in Punch in 1909, at a time when the payload of the aeroplane was very small, due to the large tare weight of the airframe and engine. Present day aircraft have a much higher payload capability, in relation to tare weight, but it is still necessary to carry the energy for propulsion within the aircraft, with the result that long range can only be achieved at the expense of payload. The propulsion energy in orthodox aircraft has always been carried in the form of hydrocarbon fucls,bccause of their ready availability, high calorific value per pound weight and high calorific value per cubic foot. Work has been in progress for some years to develop solid fuel conversion, in the interests of saving weight and space, but such fuels are likely to be extremely expensive and potentially dangerous to handle. However, the problem remains that a consumable fuel source must be carried in the aircraft, with consequent reduction of payload or range. The use of nuclear engines for aircraft has been contemplated, but it seems probable that the weight of shielding and coolant, associated with this type of engine, will limit its use to very large aircraft.

Mr Edward Bowyer, C.B.E., the Director and Chief Executive of S.B.A.C. for the past twenty years, will retire from the post at the end of June 1966, having reached the normal retiring age. For the remainder of the year he will continue as consultant to the Society.

I PROPOSE to review the company history firstly by reference to some of the many types of aeroplanes and projects it has engaged upon. A major difficulty arises in that to date the aeroplane type numbers used within the company already exceed 140. Of necessity, therefore, the types mentioned must be strictly limited.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new method of information retrieval by man‐machine interaction. The dialogue supported has more symmetry than most interactive computer systems in that the machine forms an image (rather as a man does) of the view of the human enquirer, without requiring him to ask a precise question, and responds with references according to its image. Initial tests with a prototype program indicate that a performance equal to that obtainable from a more conventional on‐line retrieval system is possible without obliging the user to formulate his query.

This article does not pretend to represent an exhaustive survey of all the differences and similarities existing between Joseph Schumpeter and his fellow Austrians. To have carried out such a task would have required a detailed knowledge of the literature which was beyond that of the present writer. Instead, what is offered here is a particular interpretation of the major characteristics of Austrian economics, the relationship of Schumpeter to these, together with some fragmentary evidence in support of the views expressed. The article begins with a brief resumé of the leading personalities of the Austrian School of Economics. In the second section the suggestion that Schumpeter was not a true member of the Austrian School is examined. It is shown that the minor differences which did exist between Schumpeter and his colleagues on technical questions are more than outweighed by agreement on the substantive issues of their economic analysis. The third section deals with the attitudes of the Austrian School to questions of method while the remaining sections deal with the classical tradition in the theory of economic growth.

Is food allergy one of the trials of the twentieth century, or is its apparently common occurrence mainly due to improved diagnosis?

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.

Mandeville's Fable of the Bees, ungenerously described by its author as a “rhapsody void of order and method”, actually developed several ideas about the functioning of markets that anticipate some of the concerns of contemporary subjectivist economics such as are expressed in the writings of the modern Austrian School. While it may be too much of an exaggeration to follow F.B. Kaye by declaring Mandeville a “founder” of laissez‐faire economics, it is also quite incorrect to reach the negative verdict of one recent author who concluded that Mandeville “did not advance free‐market economics on any issue”. Mandeville did advance economics in general (and free market economics, incidentally) when he emphasised how patterns of conduct that emerge from the clash of individual egos guided by the flattery of politicians often function to promote some degree of commodious social life that is especially enjoyed by those quick to condemn the conduct as “immoral”. This theme still has its adherents today. I shall group Mandeville's contributions among four overlapping subject headings as follows:

In the development of the science of economics, two periods of major importance can be distinguished — the middle of the eighteenth century and the last 30 years of the nineteenth century. In the former period, the heyday of the Enlightenment, it was recognised that the domain of production, distribution and market exchange should be studied as an important aspect of the social order. In that short period the foundations were laid for a more or less autonomous science of economics. It took about a century, however, to establish economics as a separate science with its own institutions: its own departments in the universities, its own language, its own journals, its own congresses, its own standards to distinguish the initiates from the laymen. That tour de force was accomplished in the last three decades of the nineteenth century. It was the introduction of marginalism that gave economics its special modern flavour. Carl Menger can justly be seen as one of the founding fathers of economics in its twentieth‐century garb.