Summary

This lecture is a recapitulation of the development of classical mechanics with respect to its formal theory as well as the further application in multi-degree-of-freedom systems during the period between the publishing of Newton’s Principia and the emergence of Relativity theory and quantum theory in the early stage of 20^th century. In general, the development comprises the emergence of two equivalent statement – Lagrange’s and Hamilton’s mechanics- and their application in multi-DOF systems such as gas-liquid-solid continuum. Limited by the length of the lecture, we will include the contributions of Bernoulli, Clausius, Maxwell, Boltzmann, and Gibbs to gas kinetics and statistical mechanics along with the work made by Euler, Navier and Stokes on fluid mechanics.

Brief introduction to the speaker

Zhang Hongbao, associate professor of Physics Department, Beijing Normal University. He received his bachelor’s degree from physics division of Peking University in 2000 and master’s degree from School of Physics, Peking University in 2003. He then was awarded PhD degree jointly by Beijing Normal University, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and University of Waterloo in 2009. Zhang took his postdoctoral position in Crete Center for Theoretical Physics from 2009 to 2012, Free University of Brussels and International Solvay Institutes in 2013. He was funded by FWO as a researcher from 2014 to 2020. Recently he is interested in Numerical Relativity and its application in AdS/CFT and Astrophysics, and covariant phase space and its application in Quantum Field Theory and quantum gravity. In addition to research in physics, he also devotes his time to the popularization of science.