Variational Principles In Physics
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Variational Principles in Physics
Author: Jean-Louis Basdevant
language: en
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Release Date: 2006-12-18
Variational principles have proven to be surprisingly fertile. For example, Fermat used variational methods to demonstrate that light follows the fastest route from one point to another, an idea which came to be a cornerstone of geometrical optics. This book explains variational principles and charts their use throughout modern physics. It examines the analytical mechanics of Lagrange and Hamilton, the basic tools of any physicist. The book also offers simple but rich first impressions of Einstein’s General Relativity, Feynman’s Quantum Mechanics, and more that reveal amazing interconnections between various fields of physics.
Variational Principles in Classical Mechanics
Two dramatically different philosophical approaches to classical mechanics were proposed during the 17th - 18th centuries. Newton developed his vectorial formulation that uses time-dependent differential equations of motion to relate vector observables like force and rate of change of momentum. Euler, Lagrange, Hamilton, and Jacobi, developed powerful alternative variational formulations based on the assumption that nature follows the principle of least action. These variational formulations now play a pivotal role in science and engineering.This book introduces variational principles and their application to classical mechanics. The relative merits of the intuitive Newtonian vectorial formulation, and the more powerful variational formulations are compared. Applications to a wide variety of topics illustrate the intellectual beauty, remarkable power, and broad scope provided by use of variational principles in physics.The second edition adds discussion of the use of variational principles applied to the following topics:(1) Systems subject to initial boundary conditions(2) The hierarchy of related formulations based on action, Lagrangian, Hamiltonian, and equations of motion, to systems that involve symmetries.(3) Non-conservative systems.(4) Variable-mass systems.(5) The General Theory of Relativity.Douglas Cline is a Professor of Physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York.
Gauge Theory and Variational Principles
Author: David Bleecker
language: en
Publisher: Addison Wesley Publishing Company
Release Date: 1981
Detailed and self-contained, this text supplements its rigor with intuitive ideas and is geared toward beginning graduate students and advanced undergraduates. Topics include principal fiber bundles and connections; curvature; particle fields, Lagrangians, and gauge invariance; inhomogeneous field equations; free Dirac electron fields; calculus on frame bundle; and unification of gauge fields and gravitation. 1981 edition