Thence the moment of momentum

Abstract

Fifty years have passed since Truesdell's seminal paper on the origin and status of the balance for the moment of momentum was published in ZAMM. It is time to take stock: Important new developments in the theory of generalized continua with internal degrees of freedom and some fascinating fundamental applications need to be pointed out. Is there new evidence from classical papers regarding its independence from the balance of linear momentum? Can micropolar theory be used to “explain” electromagnetism? How is the conservation of the moment of momentum viewed in today's physics textbooks? In this paper an attempt is made to answer these and many more interesting questions.