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Variational Principles in Classical Mechanics (Cline)

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    This text emphasizes the important philosophical advantages of using variational principles, rather than the vectorial approach adopted by Newton, and attempts to bridge the chasm that exists between the approaches used in classical and quantum physics.

    Thumbnail: Euler angles - The xyz (fixed) system is shown in blue, the XYZ (rotated) system is shown in red. The line of nodes, labelled N, is shown in green. (CC BY 2.5; Timofei Shatrov  via Wikipedia)

    This page titled Variational Principles in Classical Mechanics (Cline) is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Douglas Cline via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.