ics as such: in teaching and research, as well as in the context of industry, me­ chanics is much more, and must remain much more than the mere production of data with the help of a processor. Mechanics, as it is talked about here, tradition­ ally includes a wide spectrum, ranging from applied mechanics, analytical and technical mechanics to modeling. and experimental mechanics, as well as technical realization. It also includes the subdisciplines of rigid body mechanics, continuum mechanics, or fluid mechanics, to mention only a few. One of the fundamental and most important concepts used by nearly all natural sciences is the concept of linearization, which assumes the differentiability of mappings. As a matter of fact, all of classical mechanics is based on the avail­ ability of this quality.