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'.
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