A number of alloys exhibit a phenomenon which has come to be known as ‘shape memory’. Without exception these alloys undergo a rather special type of martensitic transformation which results from one or another of the elastic constants1–7 weakening with changing temperature to the point that at the transformation temperature the transforming phase becomes both mechanically and thermodynamically unstable. ‘Shape memory’ is exhibited in the following way. A specimen at a temperature above the martensitic transformation is shaped to some desired form. The specimen is then cooled below its transformation temperature and deformed. Subsequent heating of the specimen through the transformation temperature causes reversion to the originally fabricated shape.