June 13, 2018 Wednesday
Bedtime Story
Lagrange had a Magnanimous Company
Last night you got the glimpse of the
Euler-Lagrange equation, and thereby Lagrangian mechanics.
Lagrange was very lucky in two ways,
besides the fact that he was endowed with the gift of super-human mathematical insight:
One, that he had a naturally gifted peer
reviewer in Euler who was deeply impressed with Lagrange derivations in
calculus of variations and greatly encouraged him.
Second, that Euler was not a scheming
ambitious type of personality who craved for name and glory and recognition, especially
when it was not due to him.
Galletto D. in his paper titled ‘The
Genesis of Mécanique analytique’ published in Turin, 1989 in Italian writes:
“with characteristic courtesy he (Euler)
withheld a paper he had previously written, which covered some of the same
ground, in order that the young Italian (Lagrange) might have time to complete
his work, and claim the undisputed invention of the new calculus.”
This is very rare in the world of science
and scientists where there is an intense competition to beat the other in the
game of quick publishing, especially with the modern times offering huge awards
to the winner and nothing at all to those who are even slightly late.
Even as I praise Euler for chivalry and
generosity, there is some debate on how true this is; after all heroes often
end up more glorified as time passes by and myths get piled up by historians and
sometimes by average amateur writer like this storytelling chimpanzee.
Anyway, Lagrange published his work on
calculus of variations in the form of two memoirs of the Turin society in two
different years, one in 1762 and the second after eleven years in 1773.
While he was in Turin, in the year of 1758
at the age of 22, Lagrange with the help of his student de Foncenex, established
a society which would later go on to become Turin Academy of Sciences.
His contributions to this society came in
the form of five volumes of transactions and were part of his earliest
mathematical writings.
Some of these were elaborate mathematical
papers and many of the papers covered application of mathematics to physical phenomena
such as propagation of sound, differential equation for motion, transversely
vibrating string, echoes, beats and so on.
The second volume of his transactions
discusses several of the topics discussed n the first volume but in addition to
that, in the second volume Lagrange deduces the principle of least action.
What is this principle of least action that
is sometimes also known as the principle of stationary action?
Well, it is a kind of variational
principle.
Now you may ask me what on earth is this
variational principle?
Well, it is a scientific principle that is
used within the calculus of variations.
That does not explain much, does it?
We shall deal with it in the nights to
come.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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