cygnus2
Aug13-05, 05:32 AM
Using variational principle has anyone actually tried to determine whether the exteremal path obtained is actually a maxima,minima or a saddle point. I am geting a result which says that the 2nd partial differential of the action wrt to any generalised co-ordiante is zero. i have support from the hamilton-jacobi theory which indicates that it should be so , but has actually anyone tried it out?