Mechanics Day Proceedings (Fields Institute Communications)

This volume presents the proceedings of a workshop held at The Fields Institute in June 1992 both as a commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the publication of "Foundations of Mechanics" by Ralph Abraham and Jerrold Marsden and as a celebration of Marsden's 50th birthday. The publication of that first edition marked a period of remarkable resurgence in all aspects of mechanics, which has continued through the publication of the second edition in 1978, deeply nourished by contacts with a variety of areas of mathematics, including topology, differential geometry, Lie theory, and partial differential equations. The papers collected in this volume reflect these fruitful ties as well as some others, strengthened over the last two decades, with areas of applied science including control theory.