IUTAM Symposium on Unilateral Multibody Contacts: Proceedings of the IUTAM Symposium held in Munich, Germany, August 3-7, 1998

Multibody dynamics started with the ideas of Jacob and Daniel Bernoul­ li and later on with d'Alembert's principle. In establishing a solution for the problem of the center of oscillation for a two-mass-pendulum Jacob Ber­ noulli spoke about balancing the profit-and-Ioss account with respect to the motion of the two masses. Daniel Bernoulli extended these ideas to a chain pendulum and called forces not contributing to the motion "lost forces", thus being already very close to d'Alembert's p...