Recent content by Corals

Well t is in fact time and \dot{t} is the derivative of t with respect to u (the curve along which the integration takes place). Thanks for your answer - it's all clear now...

Thanks for that, that helps. But just to explore this a bit. The first term for the Lagrangian is the below. g_{\beta\gamma}\dot{x}^{\beta}\dot{x}^{\gamma} I can imagine writing this out explicity as a big sum in which case there may well be instances of x^alpha in the sum, in which...

Thanks for that, that helps. But just to explore this a bit. The first term for the Lagrangian is the below. \frac{\partial L}{\partial x^{\alpha}}- \frac{d}{du} \left( \frac{\partial L}{\partial \dot{x}^{\alpha}} \right)=0 (g_{\beta \gamma}\dot{x}^{\beta}\dot{x}^{\gamma}) I can imagine...

Cheers for that. I'll change the layout tonight. Any light on my question in the meantime would be appreciated. I'm a banker by day, reminiscing my background of physics, contemplating a move back...

Homework Statement Hi, I am reading Ray d'Inverno's book, 'Introducing Einstein's Relativity' and there is a particular derivation of the geodesic equation that I get stumped on (chapter 7). It is a variational method and the final equation is df/dx_alpha-d/du{df/dx_alpha_dot}=0 where...