IEE Power Division: Chairman´s address. The shape of things to come

The design of electrical machines is almost entirely a problem concerned with shape. Some of our manufactured articles are the shape they are of necessity. Others may be designed in a variety of shapes within certain rules. For example, a drinking vessel must have at least one concave surface. But many other articles have stayed the same shape for generations purely by tradition. An engineer, who is primarily concerned with making inanimate objects, may be advised to study shapes found in Nature, to study the reason why one particular shape has evolved and then to ask himself seriously whether his products have really been designed or whether they have simply `evolved¿. Evolution in engineering means the result of an ever-changing sense of economic values, and often in the past we have, in effect, produced monstrosities by this process. An academic engineer may set himself the task of changing the shape of machines entirely for the sake of curiosity, and there is evidence that such an approach can lead to useful new commercial products. To `think shape¿ is often to think profitably.