Nonlinear Problems of Elasticity

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