Modern Developments In the Mechanics of Continua

On an occasion such as this, the speaker is expected to disclose some earth-shaking discovery of his own. Great international conferences are scheduled at decent intervals, nowadays no less than a week apart, so as to allow such discoveries to be made from one to the next. The only way to be snobbish today in circles of science is to refuse to make any more discoveries and instead devote one’s time to learning the state of the subject, like an old-fashioned teacher from the days before research had become a racket for hoodwinking the public into allowing professors something approaching one third of a living wage. With the permission of the experts here assembled, I will explain thermodynamics to the best of my ability to understand it. While I shall present some unpublished material, it will be what I have learned from others.