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In physics, Hamilton's principle is William Rowan Hamilton's formulation of the principle of stationary action.It states that the dynamics of a physical system are determined by a variational problem for a functional based on a single function, the Lagrangian, which may contain all physical information concerning the system and the forces acting on it.
Starting with Hamilton's principle, the local differential Euler–Lagrange equation can be derived for systems of fixed energy. The action in Hamilton's principle is the Legendre transformation of the action in Maupertuis' principle. [18]
In physics, action is a scalar quantity that describes how the balance of kinetic versus potential energy of a physical system changes with trajectory. Action is significant because it is an input to the principle of stationary action, an approach to classical mechanics that is simpler for multiple objects. [1]
Hamilton's equations have another advantage over Lagrange's equations: if a system has a symmetry, so that some coordinate does not occur in the Hamiltonian (i.e. a cyclic coordinate), the corresponding momentum coordinate is conserved along each trajectory, and that coordinate can be reduced to a constant in the other equations of the set.
The solution can be related to the system Lagrangian by an indefinite integral of the form used in the principle of least action: [5]: 431 = + Geometrical surfaces of constant action are perpendicular to system trajectories, creating a wavefront-like view of the system dynamics. This property of the Hamilton–Jacobi equation connects ...
Hamilton's principle (or the action principle) states that the motion of a conservative holonomic (integrable constraints) mechanical system is such that the action integral = (, ˙,) is stationary with respect to variations in the path ().
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Hamilton's advances enlarged the class of mechanical problems that could be solved. His principle of "Varying Action" was based on the calculus of variations, in the general class of problems included under the principle of least action which had been studied earlier by Pierre Louis Maupertuis, Euler, Joseph Louis Lagrange and others. Hamilton ...