Modeling the mammalian jaw mechanism: a comprehensive síntesis. (Book Review)

CASSINI, GUILLERMO HERNÁN; VIZCAÍNO, SERGIO FABIÁN

JOURNAL OF MAMMALIAN EVOLUTION

SPRINGER

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2015 vol. 22 p. 121 - 122

1064-7554

BOOK REVIEW: Modeling the Mammalian Jaw Mechanism: a Comprehensive Synthesis  THE MAMMALIAN JAW: A MECHANICAL ANALYSIS. By Walter S. Greaves, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2012. 126 pp., $76.00 (cloth). ISBN 1107016223. At a time when continuum mechanics proposes a unified model for rigid bodies, deformable solids and fluids using sophisticated mathematical descriptions, it is a courageous intellectual challenge to advance a classic Newtonian approach to explain the mechanics of the mammalian jaw. In series of articles written over forty years, Walter Stalker Greaves further refined this basic model in the context of the diverse designs of mammalian jaws. However, a chronological reading of these papers would require, as Greaves himself notes, the integration of a great amount of unordered information. Fortunately, Greaves has done this work for us in his excellent book The Mammalian Jaw: a Mechanical Analysis, published recently by Cambridge University Press, which integrates and organizes the information provided and concepts developed in his articles. In this neat bit of work, Greaves presents in four chapters his understanding of the mammalian jaw mechanism in a logical linear sequence, beginning with a basic geometrical mechanical model that increases in complexity as the chapters progress. Although some of the concepts presented require abstract thinking, Walter Stalker Greaves has succeeded in simultaneously providing an introductory and sophisticated mechanical synthesis that serves as inspiration to those of us devoted to the study of the mammalian mastication.