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A Brief Review of Helmholtz Conditions

Mathematical Physics 2016-02-08 v2 math.MP

Abstract

It is well known that the equations of motion obtained from Newtons second law of motion can be obtained from a Lagrangian via the Euler-Lagrangian formulation if and only if the equations of motion satisfy the Helmholtz conditions. In this pedagogical article we give a simple proof of the above statement and show its application to simple mechanical and dissipative systems.

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Cite

@article{arxiv.1602.01563,
  title  = {A Brief Review of Helmholtz Conditions},
  author = {Kushagra Nigam and Kinjal Banerjee},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1602.01563},
  year   = {2016}
}

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11 Pages