One of the major achievements in fluid mechanics in the last quarter of the twentieth century has been the development of an asymptotic description of perturbations to boundary layers known generally as 'triple deck theory'. These developments have had a major impact on our understanding of laminar fluid flow, particularly laminar separation. It is also true that the theory rests on three quarters of a century of development of boundary layer theory which involves analysis, experimentation and computation. All these parts go together, and to understand the triple deck it is necessary to...