Continuum mechanics versus the mathematical analysis of its differential equations: In Memoriam Tony Spencer

Abstract

In 1966, A. J. M. Spencer gave an inaugural lecture on continuum mechanics on the occasion of his appointment to a professorship at the University of Nottingham. The lecture gave an accurate, but nontechnical, picture of the interaction of mathematics and continuum mechanics at that time, together with a prediction of their subsequent hoped-for interactions. This article responds to Spencer’s lecture by surveying these fields as of 1966, by tracing their developments, interactions, and lack thereof in the subsequent years, and by commenting on the prospects for the future.