A Treatise on the Mathematical Theory O Elasticity (Classic Reprint)

Cambridge University Press in two volumes bearing the dates 1892 and 1893. At the time, about five years ago, when it first became necessary to think seriously about a new edition, a number of friends had sent me criticisms of particular sections of the book and suggestions for improvement in matters of detail. A mong these friends Prof. W. J. Lewis and Prof. W. MF. Orr must be named with especial gratitude. I knew then that two or three Chapters ought to be rewritten, and that the results of several new researches ought to be incorporated, but I did not contemplate a very extensive revision. The task of rearranging the old matter, with some considerable additions and a few slight omissions, became so distasteful, and the result appeared so unsatisfactory, that at length I abandoned the attempt, and wrote a new book containing some extracts from the old one. The science of Elasticity the mechanics of solid bodies as they really are is so important in itself, and the physical notions and analytical processes belonging to the theory are so widely used in other branches of Physics, that no apology seems to be necessary for the course that has been pursued. In the selection, and the mode of presentation, of the matter three objects have been kept in view: to make the book useful to engineers, or others, whose aims are chiefly practical, to emphasize the bearing of the theory on general questions of Natural Philosophy, to afford a reasonably complete picture of the state of the science as it is to-days The desire to be useful has led me to undertake some rather laborious arithmetical computations, physical interest has prompted something more than a passing reference to several matters which lie outside the strict scope of the mechanical theory, completeness has required the inclusion of some rather long analytical investigations.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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