The first part of this paper describes some important underlying themes in the mathematical theory of continuum mechanics that are distinct from formulating and analyzing governing equations. The main part of this paper is devoted to a survey of some concrete, conceptually simple, pretty problems that help illuminate the underlying themes. The paper concludes with a discussion of the crucial role of invariant constitutive equations in computation.

In this paper we study classification of homogeneous solutions to the stationary Euler equation with locally finite energy. Written in the form $\bu = \n^\perp \Psi$, $\Psi(r,\th) = r^{\l} \psi(\th)$, for $\l >0$, we show that only trivial solutions exist in the range $0<\l<1/2$, i.e. parallel shear and rotational flows. In other cases many new solutions are exhibited that have hyperbolic, parabolic and elliptic structure of streamlines. In particular, for $\l>9/2$ the number of different non-trivial elliptic solutions is equal to the cardinality of the set $(2,\sqrt{2\l}) \cap \N$. The case $\l = 2/3$ is relevant to Onsager's conjecture. We underline the reasons why no anomalous dissipation of energy occurs for such solutions despite their critical Besov regularity $1/3$.

We present a simple proof on the formation of flocking in the F. Cucker and S. Smale system [Jpn. J. Math. (3) 2, No. 1, 197–227 (2007; Zbl 1166.92323)] based on the explicit construction of a Lyapunov functional. Our results also provide a unified condition on the initial states in which the exponential convergence to the flocking state will occur. For large particle systems, we give a rigorous justification for the mean-field limit from the many particle Cucker-Smale system to the Vlasov equation with flocking dissipation as the number of particles goes to infinity.

In this paper, we consider the cutoff Boltzmann equation near Maxwellian, we proved the global existence and uniqueness for the cutoff Boltzmann equation in polynomial weighted space for all $\gamma \in (-3, 1]$. We also proved initially polynomial decay for the large velocity in $L^2$ space will induce polynomial decay rate, while initially exponential decay will induce exponential rate for the convergence. Our proof is based on newly established inequalities for the cutoff Boltzmann equation and semigroup techniques. Moreover, by generalizing the $L_x^\infty L^1_v \cap L^\infty_{x, v}$ approach, we prove the global existence and uniqueness of a mild solution to the Boltzmann equation with bounded polynomial weighted $L^\infty_{x, v}$ norm under some small condition on the initial $L^1_x L^\infty_v$ norm and entropy so that this initial data allows large amplitude oscillations.

Inspired by works of Castéras (Pac J Math 276:321–345, 2015), Li and Zhu (Calc Var Partial Differ Equ 58:1–18, 2019), Sun and Zhu (Calc Var Partial Differ Equ 60:1–26, 2021), we propose a heat flow for the mean field equation on a connected finite graph G=(V,E). Namely ∂_tϕ(u)=Δu−Q+ρ\frac{e^u}{∫_V e^u dμ} u(⋅,0)=u_0, where Δ is the standard graph Laplacian, ρ is a real number, Q:V→R is a function satisfying ∫_V Qdμ=ρ, and ϕ:R→R is one of certain smooth functions including ϕ(s)=es. We prove that for any initial data u_0 and any ρ∈R, there exists a unique solution u:V×[0,+∞)→R of the above heat flow; moreover, u(x, t) converges to some function u_∞:V→R uniformly in x∈V as t→+∞, and u_∞ is a solution of the mean field equation Δu_∞−Q+ρ\frac{e^{u_∞}}{∫_V e^{u_∞}dμ}=0. Though G is a finite graph, this result is still unexpected, even in the special case Q≡0. Our approach reads as follows: the short time existence of the heat flow follows from the ODE theory; various integral estimates give its long time existence; moreover we establish a Lojasiewicz–Simon type inequality and use it to conclude the convergence of the heat flow.