FOREWORDThe first attempt to apply a mathematical framework to thermocapillary flows is attributed to the article written in 1959 by N.O. Young, J.S. Goldstein and M.J. Block [YGB]. This classic work brought interface driven flows into attention of the Eastern hydrodynamic community particularly focusing on the surface flows induced by the temperature inhomogeneities. However, there is another work, which is currently hidden from worldwide scientific attention due to the fact that it was written in Russian many years ago. In 1956, in Zhurnal Fizicheskoi Khimii (a journal of the former USSR, nowadays it is known as Russian Journal of Physical Chemistry A) A.I. Fedosov published an article entitled 'Thermocapillary motion', where he introduced a mathematical description of the thermocapillary effect, sequentially considering two problems: the motion of a flat liquid layer and the motion of a spherical nondeformed drop without gravity. After thorough historical research, and with much help from different people we found that this result was obtained by Fedosov before the year 1948, in his doctorate thesis (under the supervision of Benjamin Levich). However, the story is even more curious: in 1944, Lev Landau and Evgeny Lifshitz published[LL] the most general form of the boundary conditions for the liquid-liquid interfaces which ultimately leads to any cause of surface-driven motion, including the thermocapillary one. Below, we present an English translation of the Fedosov article, temporarily leaving aside the chronology of the scientific inputs of Fedosov, Levich and Landau, and reserving to return to this story in the near future.In a course of this translation, a substantial amount of historical work was done. We deeply appreciate Sergey A. Fedosov, Alexey V. Belyaev, and Igor Yu. Makarikhin for their generous help in obtaining the important documents. We are also indebted to Michael Köpf for critical reading of this translation.
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