Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-5lx2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-28T05:34:07.533Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2014

Grigory Isaakovich Barenblatt
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Get access

Summary

The purpose of the present book is to give an idea about fundamental concepts and methods, as well as instructive special results, of a unified intermediate asymptotic mathematical theory of the flow, deformation and fracture of real fluids and deformable solids. This theory is based on a quite definite and, we emphasize, idealized approach where the real materials are replaced by a continuous medium; therefore it is often called the mechanics of continua. It generalizes, and represents from a unified viewpoint, more focused disciplines: fluid dynamics, gas dynamics, the theory of elasticity, the theory of plasticity etc. For various reasons these disciplines underwent separate development for a long time. The splendid exceptions found in the work of A. L. Cauchy, C. L. M. H. Navier and A. Barré de Saint-Venant in the nineteenth century and L. Prandtl, Th. von Kármán, and G. I. Taylor in the twentieth century confirm rather than disprove the general rule. Therefore the teaching of the mechanics of continua and, more generally, the maintaining of interest in the mechanics of continua as a unified scientific discipline was, in this period of fragmentation, the job of physicists, who considered it to be a necessary part of a complete course of theoretical physics. So it was not by accident that among those who created courses in mechanics of continua were outstanding physicists: M. Planck, A. Sommerfeld, V. A. Fock, Ya. I. Frenkel, L. D. Landau and E. M. Lifshitz and, more recently, L. M. Brekhovskikh.

The physicists were more interested, however, in general ideas and methods rather than in the consistent presentation of special, even very important, results, which in fact give true shape to the subject.

Type
Chapter
Information
Flow, Deformation and Fracture
Lectures on Fluid Mechanics and the Mechanics of Deformable Solids for Mathematicians and Physicists
, pp. 1 - 9
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Introduction
  • Grigory Isaakovich Barenblatt, University of California, Berkeley
  • Book: Flow, Deformation and Fracture
  • Online publication: 05 June 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139030014.003
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Introduction
  • Grigory Isaakovich Barenblatt, University of California, Berkeley
  • Book: Flow, Deformation and Fracture
  • Online publication: 05 June 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139030014.003
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Grigory Isaakovich Barenblatt, University of California, Berkeley
  • Book: Flow, Deformation and Fracture
  • Online publication: 05 June 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139030014.003
Available formats
×