A History of Research and a Review of Recent Developments

Introduction xxxi
but the feeling in recent decades is that the prayer should be replaced by a
microchip that monitors the damage as it occurs and gives instructions to the
controlling computers.
It can be seen from these introductory remarks that there is a great deal of
data available and, as we said earlier, conferences on the subject are taking
place with increasing regularity. The aim is to review the history as concisely
as possible, beginning with the physics and ending with the engineering of the
subject. The future is not easily predicted. Nuclear explosions are less likely,
one hopes, but local explosions due to terrorism or revolution seem to be
growing in number throughout the world. The need for research and
development will no doubt remain, perhaps with a change of emphasis from
military to civil requirements. There is already a move to increase the amount
of university funding in this area, underwritten by the response of senior
committees to the need for fuller research in support of the ‘new’ subject of
Hazard Engineering, and this text may help to introduce the problems of
explosions and structures to a wider audience of academics, consultants and
advanced students.