The Calculus of Variations: An Introduction
www.uu.edu › dept › mathWhat is the Calculus of Variations “Calculus of variations seeks to find the path, curve, surface, etc., for which a given function has a stationary value (which, in physical problems, is usually a minimum or maximum).” (MathWorld Website) Variational calculus had its beginnings in 1696 with John Bernoulli Applicable in Physics
The Calculus of Variations
math.hunter.cuny.edu › mbenders › cofvThe Calculus of Variations is concerned with solving Extremal Problems for a Func- tional. That is to say Maximum and Minimum problems for functions whose domain con- tains functions,Y(x) (orY(x1;¢¢¢x2), orn-tuples of functions). The range of the functional will be the real numbers, R Examples: I.
7.2 Calculus of Variations - MIT Mathematics
math.mit.edu › classes › 187.2. CALCULUS OF VARIATIONS c 2006 Gilbert Strang 7.2 Calculus of Variations One theme of this book is the relation of equations to minimum principles. To minimize P is to solve P 0 = 0. There may be more to it, but that is the main point. For a quadratic P(u) = 1 2 uTKu uTf, there is no di culty in reaching P 0 = Ku f = 0. The matrix K is ...
Calculus of Variations - Miami
www.physics.miami.edu › ~nearing › mathmethods16|Calculus of Variations 3 In all of these cases the output of the integral depends on the path taken. It is a functional of the path, a scalar-valued function of a function variable. Denote the argument by square brackets. I[y] = Z b a dxF x;y(x);y0(x) (16:5) The speci c Fvaries from problem to problem, but the preceding examples all have ...