Mathematical Methods for Mechanics

Mathematics is undoubtedly the key to state-of-the-art high technology. It is aninternationaltechnicallanguageandprovestobeaneternallyyoungscience to those who have learned its ways. Long an indispensable part of research thanks to modeling and simulation, mathematics is enjoying particular vit- ity now more than ever. Nevertheless, this stormy development is resulting in increasingly high requirements for students in technical disciplines, while general interest in mathematics continues to wane at the same time. This book and its appendices on the Internet seek to deal with this issue, helping students master the di?cult transition from the receptive to the productive phase of their education. The author has repeatedly held a three-semester introductory course - titled Higher Mathematics at the University of Stuttgart and used a series of "handouts" to show further aspects, make the course contents more motiv- ing, and connect with the mechanics lectures taking place at the same time. One part of the book has more or less evolved from this on its own. True to the original objective, this part treats a variety of separate topics of varying degrees of di?culty; nevertheless, all these topics are oriented to mechanics. Anotherpartofthisbookseekstoo?eraselectionofunderstandablereal- ticmodelsthatcanbeimplementeddirectlyfromthemultitudeofmathema- calresources.TheauthordoesnotattempttohidehispreferenceofNumerical Mathematics and thus places importance on careful theoretical preparation. von Gekeler, Eckart