This book offers a detailed and stimulating account of the Lagrangian, or variational, approach to general relativity and beyond. The approach more usually adopted when describing general relativity is to introduce the required concepts of differential geometry and derive the fi…
This book offers a detailed and stimulating account of the Lagrangian, or variational, approach to general relativity and beyond. The approach more usually adopted when describing general relativity is to introduce the required concepts of differential geometry and derive the fi…
"The Principle of Least Action originates in the idea that, if Nature has a purpose, it should follow a minimum or critical path. This simple principle (and its variants and generalizations) applies to optics, mechanics, electromagnetism, relativity and quantum mechanics, and pr…
"The Principle of Least Action originates in the idea that, if Nature has a purpose, it should follow a minimum or critical path. This simple principle (and its variants and generalizations) applies to optics, mechanics, electromagnetism, relativity and quantum mechanics, and pr…
The principle of least action originates in the idea that, if nature has a purpose, it should follow a minimum or critical path. This simple principle, and its variants and generalizations, applies to optics, mechanics, electromagnetism, relativity, and quantum mechanics, and pr…
Prehistory of variational principles -- An excursio to Newton's Principia -- The optical-mechanical analogy, Part I: D'Alembert, Lagrange, and the statics-dynamics analogy -- The optical mechanical analogy, Part II: the Hamilton-Jacobi equation -- Relativity and least action -- …
"The Principle of Least Action originates in the idea that, if Nature has a purpose, it should follow a minimum or critical path. This simple principle (and its variants and generalizations) applies to optics, mechanics, electromagnetism, relativity and quantum mechanics, and pr…
This text brings history and the key fields of physics together to present a unique technical discussion of the principles of least action.
This book presents tutorial overviews for many applications of variational methods to molecular modeling. Topics discussed include the Gibbs-Bogoliubov-Feynman variational principle, square-gradient models, classical density functional theories, self-consistent-field theories, p…
This book presents tutorial overviews for many applications of variational methods to molecular modeling. Topics discussed include the Gibbs-Bogoliubov-Feynman variational principle, square-gradient models, classical density functional theories, self-consistent-field theories, p…