An elastic medium suffers a simple shear in the \(y\) direction such that a
point originally at \((x, y)\) moves to the position \((x, y+\gamma x)\), where
\(\gamma=\partial_{\eta} / \partial x \ll 1\) is the shearing strain. Examine
the transformation of the circle \(x^{2}+y^{2}=a^{2}\) into an ellipse to find
the magnitudes and orientation of the principal axes due to a simple shear.
\(A\) nswer: To a first order in \(x\) the angles between the principal axes and
the \(x\) axis are \((\pi+\gamma) / 4,(3 \pi+\gamma) / 4 ;\) their magnitudes are
\(a\left[1 \pm\left(\gamma / 2+\gamma^{2} / 8+\cdots \cdot\right)\right]\).