The Rational Spirit in Modern Continuum Mechanics Essays and Papers Dedicated to the Memory of Clifford Ambrose Truesdell III

Chi-Sing Man, Fosdick, R. L.:



The Rational Spirit in Modern Continuum Mechanics



Kluwer Acad. Pub. I Springer Netherlands, 2004, 1. Auflage, 8O8p., Hardcover



ISBN-1O: 1-4020-1828-2, ISBN-13: 978-1-4020-1828-2, 180,- €, 198.- $



On January 14, 2000 Clifford A. Truesdell passed away. He can be considered as the "main architect for the renaissance of rational continuum mechanics since the middle of the twentieth century" (R. Fosdick). The essays and articles of the present book are dedicated to this important and remarkable person. They have been previously published in the Journal ofElasticity Vols. 70, 71, 72 (2003).



The book starts with a reproduction of a painting of Truesdell by J. Sheppard. In the sequel, some more pictures of Truesdell can be found. After a brief foreword by R. Fosdick, a list of Truesdell’s published works is given, which contains more than 270 titles. The last one is the third editions of The Non-Linear Field Theories of Mechanics, co-authored by W. Noll.



The following articles by B. D. Coleman, E. Giusti, W. Noll, J. Serrin and D. Speiser contain considerations of Truesdell’s life, work, and academic activities.



The rest of this voluminous book contains almost 40 scientific papers on various aspects of continuum mechanics, thermodynamics, mathematics, and related fields. The list of the authors reads like the Who is Who of modem continuum mechanics. Some of these papers also contain small dedications and references to Truesdell’s life, work, and personality. In fact, many of these authors can be considered as scholars of Truesdell, which demonstrates the huge range of his influence upon natural science. Apart from the American school, there is also a significant amount of Italian contributions, among many others worldwide.



This brief review is not the right place to consider all these papers individually, although many of them are rather remarkable. Most of them show the high mathematical standard ofrational mechanics, which is also due to Truesdell’s intentions. The book may serve as an overview on the state of art of modem natural science, and gives some insight into particular fields of current research activities as well. Consequently, it is not only interesting for historical reasons, but also for those who want to know more about modem mechanics and applied mathematics.