Editing Talk:2904: Physics vs. Magic
Please sign your posts with ~~~~ |
Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
The edit can be undone.
Please check the comparison below to verify that this is what you want to do, and then save the changes below to finish undoing the edit.
Latest revision | Your text | ||
Line 128: | Line 128: | ||
Probably not the clearest way to put that I suppose, but while the Euler-Lagrange equations might not take initial and final states as inputs, the least action principle from which they are derived is formalised that way, at least insofar as it takes the generalized coordinates at each end of an interval and gives a rule for the evolution between them. The fact that in practice you usually grind the Lagrangian into ELEs in order to solve it doesn't mean that there's anything stopping you doing it directly by, say, discretizing the interval to turn the action integral into a form you can minimize directly. I still think that the least-action principle from classical mechanics makes much more sense as the root for this joke than their use specifically in particle physics. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.189|172.70.86.189]] 17:50, 14 March 2024 (UTC) | Probably not the clearest way to put that I suppose, but while the Euler-Lagrange equations might not take initial and final states as inputs, the least action principle from which they are derived is formalised that way, at least insofar as it takes the generalized coordinates at each end of an interval and gives a rule for the evolution between them. The fact that in practice you usually grind the Lagrangian into ELEs in order to solve it doesn't mean that there's anything stopping you doing it directly by, say, discretizing the interval to turn the action integral into a form you can minimize directly. I still think that the least-action principle from classical mechanics makes much more sense as the root for this joke than their use specifically in particle physics. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.189|172.70.86.189]] 17:50, 14 March 2024 (UTC) | ||
− | |||
− | |||
− | |||
− | |||
I feel like this explanation needs a Simple English rewrite. The introduction is ok, but I came here with the simple question "What are Lagrangians?" and the sci-speak is so opaque it might as well be just "magic". [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.61|172.70.91.61]] 20:03, 15 March 2024 (UTC) | I feel like this explanation needs a Simple English rewrite. The introduction is ok, but I came here with the simple question "What are Lagrangians?" and the sci-speak is so opaque it might as well be just "magic". [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.61|172.70.91.61]] 20:03, 15 March 2024 (UTC) |