Microcontinuum Field Theories

Microcontinuum field theories constitute an extension of classical field theories – of elastic bodies, deformations, electromagnetism, and the like – to microscopic spaces and short time scales. Material bodies are here viewed as collections of large numbers of deformable particles, much as each volume element of a fluid in statistical mechanics is viewed as consisting of a large number of small particles for which statistical laws are valid. Classical continuum theories are valid when the characteristic length associated with external forces or stimuli is much larger than any internal scale of the body under consideration.