Power Expantion in Lagrangian Derivation

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tharchin
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In Mechanics by Landau-Lifgarbagez there is a step during the derivation of the Lagrangian where..

[tex]\int_{t_1}^{t_2} L(q+\delta q, \dot q + \delta \dot q, t ) \, \mathrm{d}t - \int_{t_1}^{t_2} L(q, \dot q, t ) \, dt[/tex]

then they write "when this difference is expanded in powers of [tex]\delta q[/tex] and [tex]\delta \dot q[/tex] in the integrand, the leading terms are of first order."

The don't show this expansion and I was hoping someone could point me to a reference where they do. Thanks.
 
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tharchin said:
In Mechanics by Landau-Lifgarbagez there is a step during the derivation of the Lagrangian where..

[tex]\int_{t_1}^{t_2} L(q+\delta q, \dot q + \delta \dot q, t ) \, \mathrm{d}t - \int_{t_1}^{t_2} L(q, \dot q, t ) \, dt[/tex]

then they write "when this difference is expanded in powers of [tex]\delta q[/tex] and [tex]\delta \dot q[/tex] in the integrand, the leading terms are of first order."

The don't show this expansion and I was hoping someone could point me to a reference where they do. Thanks.

Hi tharchin,

I don't have the book at hand but he is probably just talking of a Taylor expansion of the integrand
[tex]L(q+\delta q, \dot q + \delta \dot q, t ) = L(q, \dot q, t ) + \frac{\partial L}{\partial q}\delta q +\frac{\partial L}{\partial \dot q}\delta \dot q[/tex]