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The calculus of variations may be said to begin with Newton's minimal resistance problem in 1687, followed by the brachistochrone curve problem raised by Johann Bernoulli (1696). [2] It immediately occupied the attention of Jacob Bernoulli and the Marquis de l'Hôpital , but Leonhard Euler first elaborated the subject, beginning in 1733.
The curve of fastest descent is not a straight or polygonal line (blue) but a cycloid (red).. In physics and mathematics, a brachistochrone curve (from Ancient Greek βράχιστος χρόνος (brákhistos khrónos) 'shortest time'), [1] or curve of fastest descent, is the one lying on the plane between a point A and a lower point B, where B is not directly below A, on which a bead slides ...
A locally shortest path between two given points in a curved space, assumed [b] to be a Riemannian manifold, can be defined by using the equation for the length of a curve (a function f from an open interval of R to the space), and then minimizing this length between the points using the calculus of variations. This has some minor technical ...
The problem of navigating an airship which is surrounded by air, was presented first in 1929 at a conference by Ernst Zermelo. Other mathematicians have answered the challenge over the following years. The dominant technique for solving the equations is the calculus of variations. [2]
De Witte's treatment is more original than that description might suggest, although limited to two dimensions; it uses calculus of variations to show that Huygens' construction and Fermat's principle lead to the same differential equation for the ray path, and that in the case of Fermat's principle, the converse holds. De Witte also noted that ...
Shortest path (A, C, E, D, F) between vertices A and F in the weighted directed graph. In graph theory, the shortest path problem is the problem of finding a path between two vertices (or nodes) in a graph such that the sum of the weights of its constituent edges is minimized.
If the surface is a plane, then the shortest curve is a line. But if the surface is, for example, egg-shaped, then the shortest path is not immediately clear. These paths are called geodesics, and one of the most fundamental problems in the calculus of variations is finding geodesics. Another example is: Find the smallest area surface filling ...
In classical mechanics, Maupertuis's principle (named after Pierre Louis Maupertuis, 1698 – 1759) states that the path followed by a physical system is the one of least length (with a suitable interpretation of path and length). [1] It is a special case of the more generally stated principle of least action.