Article
Article
Lagrange's equations
Article By:
Stehle, Philip Department of Physics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Last reviewed:August 2020
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.368600
Equations of motion of a mechanical system for which a classical (nonquantum-mechanical) description is suitable, and which relate the kinetic energy of the system to the generalized coordinates, the generalized forces, and the time. If the configuration of the system is specified by giving the values of f independent quantities q1, …, qf, there are f such equations of motion. In their usual form, these equations are equivalent to Newton's second law of motion and are differential equations of the second order for the q's as functions of the time t.
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