Umfang und Gewicht der wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisse befinden sich in einem bestandigen EntwicklungsprozeB. Es ist daher notwendig, auch die Fachliteratur von Zeit zu Zeit dem Gang dieser Entwicklung anzupassen und Bilanz zu machen, indem man selbst fUr solche Gebiete ein neues Buch schreibt, die so wohlfundiert und vielfach und gut dargestellt sind, wie z. B. die Festigkeitslehre. - In diesem Buch konnen dann, geordnet und abgewogen, Ergebnisse der Forschung, die in wissenschaftlichen Zeitschriften verstreut sind, aufgenommen, und es konnen die bewahrten altbekannten Dinge mit modernen...

Until recently there was no uniform stability theory. Different approaches to stability problems had been developed in the different branches of mechanics. In the field of elasticity, it was mainly the so called static method and energy method which were used, while in the field of dynamics it was the kinetic method, which found its perfect expression in the theory of Liapunov. During the last few decades there has been a rapid development in the general theory of stability, stimulated, for example, by the investigations of H. ZIEGLER on elastic systems subject to non-conservative loads, and...

There have been great advances in theory of stability in recent decades due to the requirements of control theory and flight mechanics, for example. We need only mention the theory of A. M. Lyapunov. A number of specialists have given a very mathematical and abstract description of the Lyapunov stability theory which resulted in a 'stability theory of motion' applicable to the kinetics of rigid bodies and systems. The stability theory of elastomechanics was developed independently. However, there have been a number of important developments in recent years, also with respect to this theory,...