En su mayor parte, esta obra, se basa en una serie de conferencias dadas por el autor en diversas Universidades europeas y norteamericanas. En él las Matemáticas se mantienen a un nivel elemental a fin de dar siempre relieve al aspecto físico y por lo tanto estas conferencias no presentan un discurso deductivo.

In the first edition of this book I tried to survey in brief compass the main ideas, methods, and discoveries of rational thermodynamics as it then stood, only five years after Messrs. COLEMAN & NOLL, while in Baltimore, had written the fundamental memoir that provided for the new science the one root theretofore wanting. A survey in the same style today would require an almost wholly new book, three or four times as long. As it was in 1968, again in 1983 a consecutive treatise restricted to the foundations would be premature, for at this moment they are under earnest discussion, probing analysis, and powerful attack by several students and from several directions. Because, although in the first edition I expressed some opinions I no longer hold and made some statements I should now recast or even re tract, it seems even yet to offer a simple introduction to some aspects of the field that remain current, I have chosen to reprint it unaltered except for emendation of slips and bettering of the English here and there.

Through his voluminous and in?uential writings, editorial activities, organi- tional leadership, intellectual acumen, and strong sense of history, Clifford - brose Truesdell III (1919–2000) was the main architect for the renaissance of - tional continuum mechanics since the middle of the twentieth century. The present collection of 42 essays and research papers pays tribute to this man of mathematics, science, and natural philosophy as well as to his legacy. The ?rst ?ve essays by B. D. Coleman, E. Giusti, W. Noll, J. Serrin, and D. Speiser were texts of addresses given by their authors at the Meeting in memory of Clifford Truesdell, which was held in Pisa in November 2000. In these essays the reader will ?nd personal reminiscences of Clifford Truesdell the man and of some of his activities as scientist, author, editor, historian of exact sciences, and principal founding member of the Society for Natural Philosophy. The bulk of the collection comprises 37 research papers which bear witness to the Truesdellian legacy. These papers cover a wide range of topics; what ties them together is the rational spirit. Clifford Truesdell, in his address upon receipt of a Birkhoff Prize in 1978, put the essence of modern continuum mechanics succinctly as “conceptual analysis, analysis not in the sense of the technical term but in the root meaning: logical criticism, dissection, and creative scrutiny.