Elasticité Linéaire: relevance

The preface to Elasticité Linéaire (preface signed by Professor Paul Germain of the French Academy of Sciences) states: “Professor SOLOMON offers us a treatise. • We must admit that the once classical genre of the “treatise” (intended to combine knowledge gained on a fairly broad subject) is somewhat neglected today, and this for the very obvious reason that it is difficult to fix today in a single work a theory or a fairly broad and evolving discipline. • The author chose to omit certain chapters of the Linear context to focus on the Plane Problem, the Plane Problem, the Three-Dimensional Problem (with Representations of Solutions), the Elastic Sphere Problem, the Elastic Half-Space Problem, and the Elastic Contact Problem. In these directions the author brings extremely substantial and complete developments, which reflect very recent results from the literature. • This book shows a considerable effort to supplement the scientific quality with the presence of the useful. Therefore, not only the specialist in the field will benefit by studying this volume, but also the student or the engineer. This volume seems to be indispensable for those who want to get started in the field, for those who are looking for clarifications through a complementary approach, or for those who are interested in the mathematics of the models presented. “

About L. Solomon’s Elasticité Linéaire (brief notes by Professor Liviu Dinu)

1. The first three prints of this book sold out immediately.

2. For a long time, this book would be on every French Elasticity Theory researcher’s desk.

3. The book was translated and published in Romanian in 1969 as Elasticitate liniară. Introducere matematică în statica solidului elastic, at Editura Academiei. The Romanian edition is available on Google Books.

4. The book elaborated on the Linear Elasticity course that Liviu Solomon held at the Bucharest University. An example of the Professor’s pursuit of excellence.

5. The bibliography included in the book reflects the Romania stage of his career.  

6. Another outstanding course developed by Liviu Solomon (“Metode variaționale în Teoria Elasticității”/ “Variational methods in the Elasticity Theory”), through which a whole generation of Romanian researchers had access to the essence of natural language functional analysis, course held at the Bucharest University, was never published, only due to reservations the Professor himself had, not satisfied that the course content was enough amplified.  

7. A moving example of the Professor’s never-ending quest for perfection. In the early ’90ies, I was in Paris, at the Paris 6 University (Applied Mathematics). I was strolling among the bookshelves. Serendipitously (but we know, nothing is really accidental), my gaze fell on the Professor’s (essential) Book. The copy’s condition showed had been borrowed many times – that’s actually what drew my attention. I pulled it from the shelf and opened it. To my surprise, at the end of the book, the Professor (who else?!) had taped about 5 or 6 typed pages, 2-sided, folded to fit the book format. Those added pages (themselves clearly perused many times), contained additions to the text (20 years after the book has been published!). The Professor knew the Book still had many readers and, impressively, he was communicating with them (ignoring the passage of time), through those new pages, which had been added to each of the 3 or 4 copies in the Library.