May 5, 2008
Define the Action integral in four dimensional space-time.
Kinetic and potential energy appear in the Lagrangian.
Symmetries and Conservation Laws
Time invariance implies energy conservation.
Define the canonical momentum.
Invariance under a space transformation implies conservation of the sum of the momentum of the particles.
Topics:
- Action integral
- Kinetic and potential energy
- Lagrangian
- Symmetries and conservation laws
- Canonical momentum
- Conservation of momentum and translational symmetry
- Conservation of energy