| Abstract: | The problem of industrial replacement has been attacked on an essentially empirical basis by various writers, more especially and quite lately by E. B. Kurtz 1 E. B. Kurtz, Life Expectancy of Physical Property, Ronald Press 1930; R. Winfrey and E. B. Kurtz, Life Characteristics of Physical Property, Bulletin 103 of the Iowa Engineering Experiment Station, Iowa State College, 1931. But its mathematical analysis, which is quite within the range of modern technique, has not in prior publications 2 A special case has been discussed by H. Bateman, Messenger of Mathematics 1920 Vol. 49, p. 134. A more general discussion has been given by R. Frisch, Statsekonomisk Tidskrift, 1927, pp. 117-152. See also B. Meidell, Skandinavisk Aktuarietidskrift 1926 p. 172; J1. Washington Acad. Sci. 1928 p. 437. been advanced to the point at which it becomes applicable to Kurtz's data. The requisite analysis is, as a matter of fact, readily conducted by methods very similar to those applicable to certain problems of population growth and structure, which indeed closely resemble the problem of industrial replacement. 3 F. R. Sharpe and A. J. Lotka, A Problem in Age Distribution, Phil. Mag. April 1911 p. 435; A. J. Lotka, The Progeny of a Population Element, American Journal of Hygiene, 1928, vol. 8, p. 875; idem The Spread of Generations, Human Biology, 1929, vol. 1, p. 305. |
