Probability and its Engineering Uses. 2nd Edition. Thornton C. Fry. Bell Telephone Laboratories Series. D. van Nostrand, London. 1965. 462 pp. Diagrams. Tables. 93s.

Thermal Stress Analyses. D. J. Johns. Pergamon Press, Oxford. 1965. 211 pp. Diagrams. Tables. 2\s. This is an interesting book, measuring approximately 5 in x 8 in, bound in flexible cloth covers and excellently printed on good quality paper. Basically a survey of existing work in the thermal stress field, it contains fundamentals of thermal stress analysis, two-dimensional formulations and solutions, thermal stresses in thin plates, beams, circular cylinders and shells, thermal buckling, sundry design problems and an Appendix on heat transfer in structures. 175 references are given and 2 bibliographies quoted containing some 850 more. To cover adequately so wide a field in 211 small pages is clearly impossible and, although the basic assumptions and equations are given completely and without excessive verbiage, particular solutions are less comprehensively covered and in many cases merely sketched. A relatively high standard of mathematics is assumed; anyone unfamiliar with, say, the Rayleigh-Ritz technique is unlikely to be helped by the onepage description given. This is not surprising in so small a volume and as a supplement for a course of lectures at postgraduate level the balance is about right. An undergraduate may find the treatment too sketchy and an engineer may be driven elsewhere to find immediately usable results.—D. A. SHARP.