What's the intuition behind a lagrangian in physics? What does it represent?

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Anonymous Mon, Oct 20, 2014 13:07:53 No.6825248 [Reply] [Original]

What's the intuition behind a lagrangian in physics? What does it represent?

>>	Anonymous Mon, Oct 20, 2014 13:37:11 No.6825304 Anyone?

>>	Anonymous Mon, Oct 20, 2014 13:38:11 No.6825307 >>6825248 Yes.

>>	Anonymous Mon, Oct 20, 2014 13:39:27 No.6825309 >>6825248 No.

Anonymous Mon, Oct 20, 2014 13:41:57 No.6825312

>>6825248
>What does it represent?
A starting point.
Seriously, just don't think about it too much I guess. Lagrangian is the ingredient, theory is the recipe and food is the physics. Yes, I just ate.

Modern Lagrangians are often motivated as "most general terms allowed by symmetry" but really, since you're picking the symmetry group arbitrarily, you could argue this is just fancy way of guessing.

>>	Anonymous Mon, Oct 20, 2014 13:58:55 No.6825358 >>6825248 >What's the intuition behind a lagrangian in physics? What does it represent? Minimizing the action

>>	Anonymous Mon, Oct 20, 2014 14:14:54 No.6825376 >>6825358 ding ding ding

>>	Anonymous Mon, Oct 20, 2014 16:51:48 No.6825718 >>6825309 You ruined it, should have left it at the "Yes"

>>	Anonymous Mon, Oct 20, 2014 16:59:25 No.6825729 >>6825718 >>6825312 was supposed to say maybe

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