The scientists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, led by Jas. Bernoulli and Euler, created a coherent theory of the mechanics of strings and rods undergoing planar deformations. They introduced the basic con cepts of strain, both extensional and flexural, of contact force with its com ponents of tension and shear force, and of contact couple. They extended Newton's Law of Motion for a mass point to a law valid for any deformable body. Euler formulated its independent and much subtler complement, the Angular Momentum Principle. (Euler also gave effective variational characterizations of the governing equations. ) These scientists breathed life into the theory by proposing, formulating, and solving the problems of the suspension bridge, the catenary, the velaria, the elastica, and the small transverse vibrations of an elastic string. (The level of difficulty of some of these problems is such that even today their descriptions are sel dom vouchsafed to undergraduates. The realization that such profound and beautiful results could be deduced by mathematical reasoning from fundamental physical principles furnished a significant contribution to the intellectual climate of the Age of Reason. ) At first, those who solved these problems did not distinguish between linear and nonlinear equations, and so were not intimidated by the latter. By the middle of the nineteenth century, Cauchy had constructed the basic framework of three-dimensional continuum mechanics on the founda tions built by his eighteenth-century predecessors.
From the reviews of the second edition:
"This second edition accounts for the developments since the first edition was published, and differs from the first edition in many points. The book has been reorganized and several parts have been added. ... The already impressive body of references has been further expanded. The reviewer highly recommends this book both to graduate students and to scholars interested in the theory of elasticity." (Massimo Lanza de Cristoforis, Mathematical Reviews, Issue 2006 e)
"The second extended edition of the reviewed monograph gives a fundamental presentation of problems of nonlinear elasticity. Every chapter is equipped by instructive exercises, unsolved problems and exhaustive historical comments. The book could be very useful to applied mathematicians and engineers using in their works the elasticity theory and ... to specialists dealing with applications of differential equations and bifurcation theory." (Boris V. Loginov, Zentralblatt MATH, Vol. 1098 (24), 2006)
"Antman’s impressive work is ... a comprehensive treatise on nonlinear elasticity and a quintessential example of applied nonlinear analysis. ... The text has been revised and updated, Several new sections have been added ... This book is a ‘must’ for researchers and graduate students interested in nonlinear continuum mechanics and applied analysis. The work is scholarly and well written. ... ‘This book is directed toward scientists, engineers, and mathematicians who wish to see careful treatments of uncompromised problems.’" (Timothy J. Healey, SIAM Review, Vol. 49 (2), 2007)
