Chapter 6 The Lagrangian Method Copyright 2007 by David Morin,
[email protected] (draft version) In this chapter, we're going to learn about a whole new way of looking at things. Consider the system of a mass on the end of a spring. We can analyze this, of course, by using F = ma to write down mxÄ = ¡kx. The solutions to this equation are sinusoidal functions, as we well know. We can, however, ¯gure things out by using another method which doesn't explicitly use F = ma. In many (in fact, probably most) physical situations, this new method is far superior to using F = ma. You will soon discover this for yourself when you tackle the problems and exercises for this chapter. We will present our new method by ¯rst stating its rules (without any justi¯cation) and showing that they somehow end up magically giving the correct answer. We will then give the method proper justi¯cation. 6.1 The Euler-Lagrange equations Here is the procedure. Consider the following seemingly silly combination of the kinetic and potential energies (T and V , respectively), L ´ T ¡ V: (6.1) This is called the Lagrangian. Yes, there is a minus sign in the de¯nition (a plus sign would simply give the total energy). In the problem of a mass on the end of a spring, T = mx_ 2=2 and V = kx2=2, so we have 1 1 L = mx_ 2 ¡ kx2: (6.2) 2 2 Now write µ ¶ d @L @L = : (6.3) dt @x_ @x Don't worry, we'll show you in Section 6.2 where this comes from.