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LawrenceC
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- TL;DR Summary
- Catenary Cable Shape
Many, many years ago while in engineering graduate school I was studying calculus of variations. One classic problem was to determine the shape of a hanging cable supported at its two ends. After minimizing the integral, the catenary curve was the solution. The basic assumption in setting up of the integral to be minimized was that the potential energy of the cable must be a minimum. Why must the potential energy be a minimum?