Address by Bernard Lewis made at the Banquet of the Fifteenth International Symposium on Com- bustion, in Tokyo, August 29, 1974

It is very gratifying to me to witness the mile- stone of the twentieth year of The Combustion Institute. It has grown steadily and surely. It has reached a modest size of about 2700 active members and about I000 inactive, though in- terested, members. I t is highly regarded through- out the world. Most importantly the members of The Combustion Institute have turned out to be very agreeable, compatible people, all search- ing for the truth.

You may wish to know how it all started. Fol- lowing the termination of the war I thought it important to provide opportunity for discus- sions of combustion research that had been done just before, during, and just after the war. And so in 1948 I organized, with Professor Hirsch- felder at the University of Wisconsin, the so- called Third Combustion Symposium. The Mili- tary were very helpful in declassifying many in- teresting studies for presentation a t this Sym- posium. Participation was international from the start and the meeting was such a success that the attendees set up an ad hoc Committee on Com- bustion Symposia to organize future symposia. I t consisted of our distinguished colleagues, Hoyt Hottel, Tony Nerad of General Electric, and myself as Chairman. This committee organized the next two symposia, the Fourth a t M.I.T. in 1952 and the Fifth at the University of Pittsburgh in 1954. During this period I had come to feel the need for a legally responsible, formal organi- zation to carry on the complex functions and to meet the demands associated with these sym- posia. With the help of Bernard Stargis, another early combustion stalwart, and his legal depart- ment at the du Pont Company, the Institute was formally incorporated in 1954 under non-profit corporation laws in the State of Delaware. A Board of Directors came into being and at its first meeting, held in Pittsburgh, following the Fifth Symposium the ad hoc Committee turned over the reins to the fledgling Institute. In all of this we greatly benefited from the wisdom and guidance of our colleagues, Hottel and Nerad. In a short time the membership spread to many nations. At present there are 19 sections in 17

countries, the Japanese section being second only to that of the United States in size, which makes it especially appropriate for this twentieth anni- versary to be celebrated in Japan. As the In- stitute grew in members so also the papers pre- sented over the years became more and more sophisticated. What is of importance now is not growth in numbers but replacements of high research caliber.

The aim of The Combustion Institute as con- ceived was, and still is, to encourage and promote fundamental research in the field of combus- t ion-combust ion science--and to bring to- gether physicists, chemists and engineers to establish, hopefully, a common language of under- standing. This has been achieved to a high degree as can be seen in the contents of the published documents, both in symposium volumes and in the Institute's own and successful Journal of Combustion and Flame. The composition of the papers of this symposium is no exception, having accomplished a respectable balance between fundamentals and applications.

People and institutions are subject to a dis- ease, a prime symptom of which is loss of vitality. Vitality is lost when the thirst for new knowledge abates and is replaced by an eagerness te pro- duce some thing even when that thing is useful. There is a nice balance that can be achieved be- tween the two goals of discovering something new that nature has, until now, kept secret, and the production of things that help to provide a modicum of comfort and ease to man as he passes along his 70-odd years. Mitigation of the first goal inevitably leads to deterioration of the second. There is, of course, great satisfaction to be had from the successful application of funda- mental knowledge to the development of useful objects, and indeed we have a responsibility to do this; but there is sheer joy associated with the uncovering of something new that has been locked up within the boston of nature and that leads to a new concept. New concepts can always be counted upon to increase the power of man to help himself.

There are many interesting instances of a fresh

xxvi ADDRE~r

piece of fundamen~td work gmady broadetfug meat. Then there is Chiller's recent axceUenL the scope of applications. In our own area, for example, the study of Kumagai and Isoda in Japan ia 1955, which brought t~ these geuEemen the award of The Combt~ti~n Institute meda, l ar the Seventh Symposium, o~ ~he effeo~ ~f a gruvita?,ional field on flmao l)repagTztion, has led to sOme exeitiag studies whid~ are eiacldat, ing the profoum] effect of high centrifugal forces on mass bul'lai]tg rate and which promise a more- ~han-ordinary sdvatves]n Lnr boje~ e~gine develop-

fundamental instrmnentation s~udy in England (reported in this me~ting) whleh pro~ises b~, rc- "~~ a broad 1tow area of understandlng of fla~n~ flow ehara.ctexistics by permitting in situ meas= urement in a flame of turbulence pgramete.rs.

So [ hope tlmt the [,,stlt,ute, a~d I n,e~ta you who comprise the Institute~ vail ennllaue to develop tim selence of e~mbuetion aud koap tha t flag flying high where if, has been.