Relativity And The Question Of Discretization In Astronomy

Theoretical researches in general relativity and observational data from galactic astronomy combine in this volume in contributions to one of the oldest questions of natural philosophy: Is the structure of the physical world more adequately described by a continuous or a discrete mode of representation? Since the days of the Pythagoreans, this question has surfaced from time to time in various guises in science as well as in philosophy. One of the most bitterly contested and illuminating controversies between the continuous and the discrete viewpoints is to be found in the wave versus corpuscular description of optical phenom enae. This controversy was not resolved to the satisfaction of most of its protaganists until the development of the quantum theory. However, several obscurities that still becloud the question suggest that some deeper formulation may be necessary before more satisfactory answers can be given 1. The firm establishment of the validity of quantized structure and discrete energy distributions on the atomic scale following the ideas of Max Planck, together with the apparent absence of quan tization effect in astronomical and cosmic structures leaves uncertainties concerning the role played by the scale of the observer in perceiving or not perceiving discrete distributions. Some of the metaphysical inter pretations and implications of the quantum mechanics that have been made in recent years 2 would be subject to revision if the existence of discretized descriptions were to be established in astronomical and cosmic structures.

The theory of relativity was created in 1905 to solve a problem concerning electromagnetic fields. That solution was reached by means of profound changes in fundamental concepts and ideas that considerably affected the whole of physics. Moreover, when Einstein took gravitation into account, he was forced to develop radical changes also in our space-time concepts (1916). Relativistic works on heat, thermodynamics, and elasticity appeared as early as 1911. However, general theories having a thermodynamic basis, including heat conduction and constitutive equations, did not appear in general relativity until about 1955 for fluids and appeared only after 1960 for elastic or more general finitely deformed materials. These theories dealt with materials with memory, and in this connection some relativistic versions of the principle of material indifference were considered. Even more recently, relativistic theories incorporating finite deformations for polarizable and magnetizable materials and those in which couple stresses are considered have been formulated. A broader description of the development of these relativistic topics is contained in § 13. The purpose of this book is to describe the foundations of the general relativistic theories that include constitutive equations, and to present some applications, mainly to elastic waves, of these theories. This tract is divided into two parts. In the first part only the Eulerian point of view is considered; basic equations of general relativity, other than constitutive equations, are stated in full generality (except for couple stresses which are considered in part 2). Part 1 also thoroughly covers fluids, including constitutive equations.

This monograph concerns the development, analysis, and application of the theory of pseudo-rigid bodies. It collects together our work on that subject over the last five years. While some results have appeared else where, much of the work is new. Our objective in writing this mono graph has been to present a new theory of the deformation of bodies, one that has not only a firm theoretical basis, but also the simplicity to serve as an effective tool in practical problems. Consequently, the main body of the treatise is a multifaceted development of the theory, from foundations to explicit solutions to linearizations to methods of approximation. The fact that this variety of aspects, each examined in considerable detail, can be collected together in a single, unified treat ment gives this theory an elegance that we feel sets it apart from many others. While our goal has always been to give a complete treatment of the theory as it now stands, the work here is not meant to be definitive. Theories are not entities that appear suddenly one day and thereafter stand as given. Rather, they must mature and grow with time and experience. Our development is more correctly a beginning, tempting others to explore, appraise, and modify its features so as to produce something better.

In this book I present, in a systematic form, some local theorems on existence, uniqueness, and analytic dependence on the load, which I have recently obtained for some types of boundary value problems of finite elasticity. Actually, these results concern an n-dimensional (n ~ 1) formal generalization of three-dimensional elasticity. Such a generalization, be sides being quite spontaneous, allows us to consider a great many inter esting mathematical situations, and sometimes allows us to clarify certain aspects of the three-dimensional case. Part of the matter presented is unpublished; other arguments have been only partially published and in lesser generality. Note that I concentrate on simultaneous local existence and uniqueness; thus, I do not deal with the more general theory of exis tence. Moreover, I restrict my discussion to compressible elastic bodies and I do not treat unilateral problems. The clever use of the inverse function theorem in finite elasticity made by STOPPELLI [1954, 1957a, 1957b], in order to obtain local existence and uniqueness for the traction problem in hyperelasticity under dead loads, inspired many of the ideas which led to this monograph. Chapter I aims to give a very brief introduction to some general concepts in the mathematical theory of elasticity, in order to show how the boundary value problems studied in the sequel arise. Chapter II is very technical; it supplies the framework for all sub sequent developments.

There are currently many practical situations in which one wishes to determine the coefficients in an ordinary or partial differential equation from known functionals of its solution. These are often called "inverse problems of mathematical physics" and may be contrasted with problems in which an equation is given and one looks for its solution under initial and boundary conditions. Although inverse problems are often ill-posed in the classical sense, their practical importance is such that they may be considered among the pressing problems of current mathematical re search. A. N. Tihonov showed [82], [83] that there is a broad class of inverse problems for which a particular non-classical definition of well-posed ness is appropriate. This new definition requires that a solution be unique in a class of solutions belonging to a given subset M of a function space. The existence of a solution in this set is assumed a priori for some set of data. The classical requirement of continuous dependence of the solution on the data is retained but it is interpreted differently. It is required that solutions depend continuously only on that data which does not take the solutions out of M.

This monograph is an account of some problems involving diffusion or diffusion with simultaneous reaction that can be illuminated by the use of variational principles. It was written during a period that included sabbatical leaves of one of us (W. S. ) at the University of Minnesota and the other (R. A. ) at the University of Cambridge and we are grateful to the Petroleum Research Fund for helping to support the former and the Guggenheim Foundation for making possible the latter. We would also like to thank Stephen Prager for getting us together in the first place and for showing how interesting and useful these methods can be. We have also benefitted from correspondence with Dr. A. M. Arthurs of the University of York and from the counsel of Dr. B. D. Coleman the general editor of this series. Table of Contents Chapter 1. Introduction and Preliminaries . 1. 1. General Survey 1 1. 2. Phenomenological Descriptions of Diffusion and Reaction 2 1. 3. Correlation Functions for Random Suspensions 4 1. 4. Mean Free Path Statistics . 8 1. 5. Void Point-Surface Statistics . 11 1. 6. Variational Principles Applied to the Diffusion Equation. 12 1. 7. Notation. 16 Chapter 2. Diffusion Through a Porous Medium . 18 2. 1. Introduction 18 2. 2. Diffusion Through an Isotropic Porous Medium 18 2. 3. Variational Formulation for De . 20 2. 4. Bounds on De for an Isotropic Suspension 22 2. 5.