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This volume collects my shorter articles on the history of mechanics, some already published in various places, some revised from earlier papers, and some never published before. All of them began as lectures, and here they are printed as such, little changed from the last times I read them out to an audience. While the several articles concern different aspects of mechanics, overlap and even some repetition could not be avoided, since mechanics is one great science, and the same original oftentimes served more than one end in its growth. My three major historical treatises, which were published in Volumes (II) 11 , 2 12, and 13 of L. Euleri Opera Omnia, are not included. To simplify the printing I have also mostly omitted detailed reference to sources discussed more fully in those treatises, but of course I have added to the texts of the lectures citations of other sources, some notes in answer to questions a reader might ask, and biblio graphical notes at the end of each. I am grateful to the U.S. National Science Foundation for its support of this work through a grant to The Johns Hopkins University.
This third edition includes the corrections made by the late C. Truesdell in his personal copy. It is annotated by S. Antman who describes the monograph`s genesis and the impact it has made on the modern development of mechanics. Originally published as Volume III/3 of the famous Encyclopedia of Physics in 1965, this book describes and summarizes "everything that was both known and worth knowing in the field at the time." It also has greatly contributed to the unification and standardization of the concepts, terms and notations in the field.
Through his voluminous and in?uential writings, editorial activities, organi- tional leadership, intellectual acumen, and strong sense of history, Clifford - brose Truesdell III (1919–2000) was the main architect for the renaissance of - tional continuum mechanics since the middle of the twentieth century. The present collection of 42 essays and research papers pays tribute to this man of mathematics, science, and natural philosophy as well as to his legacy. The ?rst ?ve essays by B. D. Coleman, E. Giusti, W. Noll, J. Serrin, and D. Speiser were texts of addresses given by their authors at the Meeting in memory of Clifford Truesdell, which was held in Pisa in November 2000. In these essays...
In the first edition of this book I tried to survey in brief compass the main ideas, methods, and discoveries of rational thermodynamics as it then stood, only five years after Messrs. COLEMAN & NOLL, while in Baltimore, had written the fundamental memoir that provided for the new science the one root theretofore wanting. A survey in the same style today would require an almost wholly new book, three or four times as long. As it was in 1968, again in 1983 a consecutive treatise restricted to the foundations would be premature, for at this moment they are under earnest discussion, probing analysis, and powerful attack by several students and from several directions. Because, although in the first edition I expressed some opinions I no longer hold and made some statements I should now recast or even re tract, it seems even yet to offer a simple introduction to some aspects of the field that remain current, I have chosen to reprint it unaltered except for emendation of slips and bettering of the English here and there.
1 We search the concepts and methods ) of the theory of deformable sonds from GALILEO to LAGRANGE. Neither of them achieved much in our subject, but their works serve as 2 termini: With GALILEO's Discorsi in 1638 our matter begins ) (for this is the history of mathematical theory), while LAGRANGE's Mechanique Analitique closed the mechanics of 1) There are three major historical works that bear on our subject. The first is A history of the theory of elasticity and of the strength of materials by I. ToDHUNTER, "edited and completed" by K. PEARSON, Vol. I, Cambridge, 1886. Unfortunately it is necessary to give warning that this book fails to meet the standard set by the histories ToDHUNTER lived to finish. Much of what ToDHUNTER left seems to be rather the rough notes for a book than the book itself; the parts due to PEARSON are fortunately distinguished by square brackets. Researches prior to 1800 are disposed of in the first chapter, 79 pages long and almost entirely the work of PEARSON; as frontispiece to a work whose title restricts it to theory he saw fit to supply a possibly original pen drawing entitled "Rupture. Sur faces of Cast-Iron".
When, after the agreeable fatigues of solicitation, Mrs Millamant set out a long bill of conditions subject to which she might by degrees dwindle into a wife, Mirabell offered in return the condition that he might not thereby be beyond measure enlarged into a husband. With age and experience in research come the twin dangers of dwindling into a philosopher of science while being enlarged into a dotard. The philosophy of science, I believe, should not be the preserve of senile scientists and of teachers of philosophy who have themselves never so much as understood the contents of a textbook of theoretical physics, let alone done a bit of mathematical research or even enjoyed the confidence of...
The history of mechanics, and more particularly, the history of mechanics applied to constructions, constitutes a field of research that is relatively recent. This volume, together with the recent publication "Towards a History of Construction", is intended as an homage to the two eminent scholars who made a determinant contribution to the history of mechanics: Edoardo Benvenuto and Clifford Truesdell.
The history of mechanics, and more particularly, the history of mechanics applied to constructions, constitutes a field of research that is relatively recent. This volume, together with the recent publication "Towards a History of Construction", is intended as an homage to the two eminent scholars who made a determinant contribution to the history of mechanics: Edoardo Benvenuto and Clifford Truesdell.
Mon but n'a jamais be de m'occuper des ces matieres comme physicien, mais seulement comme /ogicien ... F. REECH, 1856 I do not think it possible to write the history of a science until that science itself shall have been understood, thanks to a clear, explicit, and decent logical structure. The exuberance of dim, involute, and undisciplined his torical essays upon classical thermodynamics reflects the confusion of the theory itself. Thermodynamics, despite its long history, has never had the benefit of a magisterial synthesis like that which EULER gave to hydro dynamics in 1757 or that which MAXWELL gave to electromagnetism in 1873; the expositions in the works of discovery in thermodynamics...