This successful textbook emphasizes the unified nature of all the disciplines of Fluid Mechanics as they emerge from the general principles of continuum mechanics. The different branches of Fluid Mechanics, always originating from simplifying assumptions, are developed according to the basic rule: from the general to the specific.

Tensor algebra and tensor analysis were developed by Riemann, Christo?el, Ricci, Levi-Civita and others in the nineteenth century. The special theory of relativity, as propounded by Einstein in 1905, was elegantly expressed by Minkowski in terms of tensor ?elds in a ?at space-time. In 1915, Einstein formulated the general theory of relativity, in which the space-time manifold is curved. The theory is aesthetically and intellectually satisfying. The general theory of relativity involves tensor analysis in a pseudo- Riemannian manifold from the outset. Later, it was realized that even the pre-relativistic particle mechanics and continuum mechanics can be elegantly formulated in terms of tensor analysis in the three-dimensional Euclidean space. In recent decades, relativistic quantum ?eld theories, gauge ?eld theories, and various uni?ed ?eld theories have all used tensor algebra analysis exhaustively. This book develops from abstract tensor algebra to tensor analysis in va- ous di?erentiable manifolds in a mathematically rigorous and logically coherent manner. The material is intended mainly for students at the fourth-year and ?fth-year university levels and is appropriate for students majoring in either mathematical physics or applied mathematics.

This mathematically-oriented introduction takes the point of view that students should become familiar, at an early stage, with the physics of relativistic continua and thermodynamics within the framework of special relativity. Therefore, in addition to standard textbook topics such as relativistic kinematics and vacuum electrodynamics, the reader will be thoroughly introduced to relativistic continuum and fluid mechanics. Emphasis in the presentation is on the 3+1 splitting technique, widely used in general relativity for introducing the relative observers point of view.

Concerned with the fundamental concepts and methods of fracture mechanics and micromechanics, Fracture Mechanics primarily focuses on the mechanical description of fracture processes; however, material specific aspects are also discussed.

This book is meant as a present to honor Professor on the th occasion of his 70 birthday. It collects refereed contributions from sixty-one mathematicians from eleven countries. They cover many different areas of research related to the work of Professor including Navier-Stokes equations, nonlinear elasticity, non-Newtonian fluids, regularity of solutions of parabolic and elliptic problems, operator theory and numerical methods. The realization of this book could not have been made possible without the generous support of Centro de Matemática Aplicada (CMA/IST) and Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. Special thanks are due to Dr. Ulrych for the careful preparation of the final version of this book. Last but not least, we wish to express our gratitude to Dr. for her invaluable assistance from the very beginning. This project could not have been successfully concluded without her enthusiasm and loving care for her father. On behalf of the editors ADÉLIA SEQUEIRA v honored by the Order of Meritof the Czech Republic by Václav Havel, President of the Czech Republic, on the October 28, 1998, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at the Charles University in Prague, Presidential Research Professor at the Northern Illinois University and Doctor Honoris Causa at the Technical University of Dresden, has been enriching the Czech and world mathematics with his new ideas in the areas of partial differential equations, nonlinear functional analysis and applications of the both disciplines in continuum mechanics and hydrodynamics for more than forty years.