Skip to main content

All Questions

1 vote
0 answers
48 views

Find curve minimizing energy loss due to friction [closed]

I am looking for an ansatz of the following problem: Given a mass $m$ moving in a constant gravitational field along curves $C$ connecting two fixed points I want to find the curve $C_0$ that ...
TomS's user avatar
  • 917
0 votes
1 answer
102 views

For virtual displacement in the Lagrangian, why is $\delta \dot{x_i} = \delta \frac{dx_i}{dt} = \frac{d}{dt}\delta x_i \equiv 0$?

I am having trouble understanding why $$\delta \dot{x_i} = \delta \frac{dx_i}{dt} = \frac{d}{dt}\delta x_i \equiv 0.\tag{7.132}$$ you can see my explanation leading up to it below. I would greatly ...
Reuben's user avatar
  • 283
3 votes
3 answers
428 views

Lagrangian Derivation of Brachistocrone? [closed]

I've been trying to derive the functional description of the brachistocrone. To do this, I used the Lagrangian to describe motion along a functional path. given a function $ f(x) $ where $0<y<a$ ...
BooleanDesigns's user avatar
5 votes
0 answers
101 views

Optimal tunnel shape for travelling inside the earth [duplicate]

Say you were to travel from Paris to Tokyo by digging a tunnel between both cities. If the tunnel is straight, one can easily compute that the time for travelling from one city to the other (...
Mathusalem's user avatar