May 2022
Intermediate to advanced
487 pages
9h 22m
English
The concept of calculus of variations
Variational problems
Euler's equation
Isoperimetric problems
Lagrange multipliers
Side conditions, integral
Side conditions, finite
In a maximum-minimum problem from calculus, we seek a point at which a given function assumes a maximum or minimum value. The calculus of variations concerns itself with a much more subtle sort of question: We are given a functional, usually defined by an integral, that assigns to each curve in a large family a numerical value. And we want to find the curve that minimizes the functional. To make the idea concrete, let us consider some examples:
Points P and Q are fixed in the plane. Find the ...
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